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On Oct. 31, Director of Campus Safety and Emergency Operations Mary Savage sent out an email which read, “The College has recently installed audible alarms on all of the on-campus residence hall doors to prohibit the propping of doors and provide better safety notifications to Campus Safety and students in the building.” After the voyeurism incident last year and other recent threats to Conn student safety (students assaulted by local adults on and off campus), the campus community has anxiously awaited improvements to security measures. Savage’s emails all provide the same generic advice to students: “Be aware of your surroundings; avoid secluded or dimly lit areas and walking alone at night; call police if you feel unsafe or see concerning behavior.” These are all just band-aids to cover up a serious problem and place the burden on students to protect themselves rather than on the College to improve security (something that involves money and time).
By 4 p.m. on Nov. 1, the door alarms were all activated. That night, at 3 a.m., I woke up to the most blaring alarm I have ever heard at Conn. My Knowlton floormates and I could tell from the source of the sound that it was one of the new door alarms and not a fire alarm. We checked the two exit doors on our floor and they were both shut. We expected Campus Safety to respond immediately, because Savage’s email implied that the alarms would automatically notify Campus Safety officers: “This allows Campus Safety to identify doors that have been left open or propped open so they can respond and check the area.” However, I ended up calling Campus Safety and speaking with an officer who had no idea our alarm was going off. If there had been an actual intruder, they would not have been able to respond in time to prevent potential danger.
When Campus Safety arrived, they had the people who were awake evacuate the building until they could figure out what was causing the alarm. Campus Safety determined that one of the door alarms was malfunctioning and going off even though no doors were left open. They let us all back in the building and said they would fix it within the next half hour, so I just waited in my room for the sound to stop. I turned my fan on its highest setting and put in my AirPods with white noise, but nothing could drown out the piercing sound of the alarm. Ironically, this door alarm has to be about ten times louder than most of the fire alarms on Conn’s campus (at least in the older buildings). I have complained before about the quiet, indistinguishable-from-a-blender fire alarms and how it is a safety hazard that several students have slept through those alarms.
Evidently, Campus Safety left the scene unable to fix the malfunctioning alarm. The alarm continued to go off for the next eight hours until it finally stopped at 11 a.m.! I was on the side of the hall where the alarm was the loudest, and I got no sleep until it was turned off. I talked with several staff on the phone the next morning (Campus Safety, Facilities, IT, REAL) and no one (not even the Campus Safety officer) was aware that the alarm was going off all night. I kept getting transferred to different offices, and eventually I assume that someone from IT came and fixed the alarm. Later that day, Knowlton residents received an email from the Assistant Director of REAL for South Campus, Britney Ortiz, saying that the alarms were being fixed. This response from administration came way too late. Since then, the door alarm has continued to go off sporadically throughout the day for about a minute at a time until it turns off. This is because the second floor side doors take a long time to close and often get stuck, so the alarm goes off practically every time they are opened.
Knowlton was not alone in having malfunctioning door alarms that night; Burdick and Freeman residents suffered as well. Burdick in particular has had several unintentional fire alarms this year. There have been nights when the Burdick fire alarm went off five times in a row, forcing residents to evacuate over and over again throughout the night. You would think that Campus Safety would fix the problem after the first alarm so it did not keep happening and lead to sleepless nights for many students.
Here is what other Conn students said about the door alarms and how they think that money should have been spent:
“The money should have gone to improving the quality of the dorm buildings. I don’t like the alarms; I don’t feel safer. They are annoying and very easy to work around.” –Anonymous ‘25
“The door alarms don’t account for handicap doors. And if you press the button so you have ample time to go through in a wheelchair or mobility device, it is too long for the alarm timer and it goes off…My gut reaction would be more lighting/some sort of better watch system back by gravel lot but that’s just me. And I know it will be a lot of money.” –Sydney M. ‘24
“I personally feel that the new dorm alarms are completely useless. There are so many times where even if you don’t have a Camel Card, Campus Safety will just let you in without even checking who you are. Not to mention there are so many other things on campus that could benefit from that money.” –Todd Shriber ‘25
“Workers can’t prop doors open to bring in food. People can’t hold doors open for each other…The money should have gone to paying the service workers if anything.” –Meiling Bottan ‘25
“I might be in the minority here but I actually think the door alarms are a pretty good idea…I’ve seen a lot of doors that were being propped on a consistent basis so pretty much anyone could get into the buildings. I feel like this was definitely unsafe especially considering some of the concerning Campus Safety emails we’ve gotten this year, but there was no real way to enforce not propping the doors until the alarms.” –Anonymous ‘25
“They should use the money to make it safer to actually live in the dorms…make the walls not peeling, make the paint not made of lead, stop the mold that’s literally everywhere.” –Carly Zirlen ‘25
“Intruders in dorms have never been an issue. They should be fixing real issues on campus like how the lack of common spaces on campus is creating a distanced campus community.” –Abby Dawson ‘25
I know I am not alone in thinking that Campus Safety needs to do more to make students feel truly safe at Conn. These new door alarms are an unnecessary addition to campus security measures as they have caused significantly more harm than good.
