I wonder if people really think about decisions or just arbitrarily dictate. What is going on with the doors on campus? The entire student body knows exactly what I mean. Why are some doors sometimes locked to some of the dorms? I really, really, really want to know the logic behind this system.
There are very few things that are as annoying, or can put you in a bad mood so quickly, as being locked out of your house. I presume that faculty and staff realize this as well as students. Then why is Safety and Security playing Russian roulette with the doors? The students are told that the entrance doors to the dorms on campus are unlocked all day, everyday, with the exception of one weekend a term: Tubestock, Homecoming, Winter Carnival, and Green Key. In fact, the locking of dorm doors during all three of the events is well publicized.
However, current reality is a different game. Going to visit a friend often turns into "how loud will I have to bang on the door before someone lets me in?" This is not promoting an intellectual atmosphere at Dartmouth. How are we supposed to muse on the nature of the universe, or on the human mind, when we are cursing at the door for five minutes?
I still believe in "Community at Dartmouth," but it seems like someone has different ideas. Although it may seem like an exaggeration, I am not kidding when I say that locking the dorm doors is attacking both the feeling of community and intellectualism at Dartmouth. It makes a student feel like an outsider and a thief. Not only that, the constant uncertainty produces some anxiety, and anger. I have yet to hear an intellectual discussion begin with 'G'd damn f-ing door!'.
Yet somebody, whether it be the administration, Safety and Security, or the Janitorial Staff has quietly decided to randomly lock doors. If policy really has changed, would someone clue me in? If not, why is the administration allowing this, breaking their own rules and creating a worse environment for the student body?
Perhaps the reason why I keep asking all of these questions, is that I wonder if anyone thinks that this door policy is effective. All dorms have multiple doors, and I have only once encountered a dorm where all the doors were locked. Who would be so foolish to think that by locking the only the front door, a thief would be thwarted? Please identify yourself, or unlock the damn doors !
Although this issue affects students on a daily basis, I wonder if the administration realizes that eventually this will effect alumni relations. Now before you start saying, "Oh my Lord, this guy is going off the deep-end about the doors," stop for a second. Randomly and secretly locking the dorm doors has pissed us all off on more than one occasion. So have countless other things, such as the complete lack of an advising system, $.65 soda machines, DarTalk, the new distributive requirements, $1.00 laundry machines that don't really work, etc... Now separate the simple annoyances from the deeper institutional problems. If all of these annoyances were cleared up, which a competent administrator could accomplish in one day's work, how much better would your "Dartmouth Experience" be?
Eventually we will all be alumni. I will have probably forgotten about the time that I was locked out of Gile for half an hour, or having to go around MidMass about 500 times, but I will remember the feelings of anger, and frustration. I will remember that Dartmouth was a great school but that so many of the little things were handled so poorly. I will remember that, and perhaps decide not to donate one year. Or, if I have become one of those wealthy and obsessed Dartmouth alumni, I will simply put a contingent on my donation, that requires open doors all the time. Perhaps that is the only way to accomplish change here.
