Last Thursday, SGA passed a resolution to change dorm lockout policy. Currently, the policy mandates a $25 fee for any lockout after the initial “grace period” at the beginning of the year. The new policy takes on the form of a ladder system, which charges students $10 for their first lockout, $15 for their second and $20 for their third. Only after the third lockout will students be charged the full fee of $25.
The idea came from Michael Murgo ’15 SGA Chair of Diversity and Equity, who saw many problems in the old lockout policy. First, he views it as a socioeconomic problem, “The policy originally stemmed from my goal to create a more approachable campus environment for students of all socioeconomic backgrounds.”
Second, Murgo mentioned the security implications of a steep lockout fee. If students don’t want to pay a large fee, they will leave their doors unlocked and their belongings vulnerable, instead of running the risk of finding themselves locked out. Finally, Claire von Loesecke ’15 position, who collaborated with Murgo during the process, explained that the proposed ladder system would encourage Housefellows and Floor Governors to actually charge their residents for lockouts.
“Understandably, many Housefellows and Floor Governors felt awkward, uncomfortable, or mean charging students $25 for getting locked out, so many just didn’t charge the fee, especially if one of their friends or someone they knew got locked out. However, this was problematic because it would obviously be unfair to students who didn’t happen to know Housefellows or Floor Governors and thus were charged,” von Loesecke said.
The new policy was originally conceived at SGA’s annual retreat at the beginning of each academic year. At first, Murgo and other SGA members discussed the option of eliminating the fee entirely. However, Dean Briddell stressed that elimination would be unlikely, if not impossible, based on campus history. A few years back, several students “consistently and intentionally” locked themselves out because they simply didn’t want to carry around their keys.
“Essentially, when there was no lockout fee, students were using Campus Safety as their personal doormen, and this resulted in more than 3000 lockouts in one year, an obvious excessive waste of Campus Safety officers’ time,” von Loesecke said.
Murgo and von Loesecke collaborated with Sara Rothenberger, the Director of REAL, to create the ladder system.
“SGA members brought the lock-out policy to my attention as a matter of equity for our students. It was important for SGA to advocate for a lock-out system that would both deter people from leaving their doors unlocked, and be financially just for the whole of the student body,” Rothenberg said.
Although the resolution passed in SGA, the policy is not guaranteed to go into effect.
“This is because, when a resolution passes in SGA, it goes to certain members of the administration (who are identified on something called a “staple list”) for approval. This “staple list” is essentially a list of administrators (like Deans and Directors) whose area is pertinent to the topic of the resolution. The resolution goes to these people as a strong and highly suggested recommendation on behalf of SGA and thus the student body as a whole,” von Loesecke explained.
If the administration accepts this policy, which is extremely likely though not certain, it will go into effect next semester. All lockout charges incurred during the fall semester will remain, but each student will have a clean slate for the spring semester. Similarly, lockout tallies will begin anew each year, discounting any previous lockouts from prior years.
