It's a cold snowy night and I am walking back to the Choates. My head is buried into my neck, my fingers feel like icicles, my snot is freezing in my nose and through tear-blurred vision I watch my feet to make sure they are still moving. Right, left, right, left and then, like an oasis in the desert, there is Russell Sage in front of me. I fumble with the door and then, like a miracle, I'm inside and begin to thaw in the warmth. I walk through the Hyphen and Butterfield and back out into the frozen night, but warmer with the confidence I can make it home. Does this sound familiar? Just about anyone who has survived a winter at Dartmouth understands the benefits of cutting through buildings, but let's reverse the story. This time I 'm going to dinner. My fingers are still icicles and my feet are still numb. I get to the back door of Butterfield and, with visions of warmth and shelter, I pull on the handle, and I pull and I pull but the damn thing is locked and, cursing the New Hampshire winter and the random security at this school, I somehow get my ice-block body to Thayer.
Butterfield is not the only dorm on campus that follows this random locked-door policy. Many do, but the ones that win my award for sheer superfluousness and stupidity have to be the locked side doors to Mid-Mass. These doors are consistently locked, whereas the front door and the doors to South Mass and North Mass less than 15 feet directly in front of them, remain open. I have thought long and hard about possible reasons for this seemingly random security and all the reasons I've heard or can come up with are ridiculous.
The first reason I heard to explain the locked doors is that these are the less used doors and they are locked to prevent people from loitering in the doorways. Now maybe I am just dense but I don't see how this prevents loitering. I don't understand the logic that would lead to the conclusion that these "loitering people" would be discouraged from hanging out in the doorways simply because they were locked. A person can linger about a closed door just as well as an open one. I know, I have often lingered around closed doors waiting for someone to open them. Actually, I think the fact they are locked might increase loitering since, if the door were open, you'd just go in. The second reason I have heard for the locked doors is that it keeps unwanted people out of the dorm. I'm from New York City and not quite that up to date on the New England myths about criminals, but where I come from they aren't idiots. Most of the time they will actually try the front door first rather than an obscure side door. On the chance that they try to enter first through a side door and find it locked, the majority of criminals will still try the front door, rather than simply leave discouraged.
In addition to this random locking of doors, there seems to also be just as much chance in which doors will not be locked. As far as I know, the Choates are almost never locked. My roommate was at Dartmouth over Thanksgiving and said the dorm was not locked once. It made her so nervous the boy down the hall gave her pepper spray. I don't understand. Is another New England myth about criminals that they are so lazy that the extra few minutes walk from a good dorm to the Choates is too far for them to bother with? I realize a lot of the campus does think this way, since I can never get anyone to come visit me here, but somehow I have a sneaking suspicion that the further away, slightly more deserted dorms would actually appeal to criminals rather than discourage them.
It is possible that I am simply missing something, that this system of security is not random at all, but rather based on a well organized and finely-tuned plan. But somehow, I doubt it.
