The Student Assembly last night narrowly voted to support a plan from Director of Residential Operations Woody Eckels to lock all residence hall doors starting this fall.
Under the plan, which passed by a vote of 10-8 with two members abstaining, students would have a master key to unlock all building entrances on campus. Students who live off-campus could obtain a key with a $30 deposit.
Eckels told the Assembly that Dean of the College Lee Pelton pledged to support the plan if the Assembly approved of it.
The vote came after heated debate about student objections to the proposal and fears about changing the open atmosphere of the campus.
"Every single person I've spoken to is very against this," Leonora Snyder '99 said.
"Its apparent the campus does not want this," Christina DeVito '01 said.
Similar concerns about the negative sentiments of the majority of the student body were echoed by most members of the Assembly.
Even vice president-elect and vocal supporter Case Dorkey '99 said he felt most students do not want to see a change.
Dorkey said while he was personally in favor of the locks and the security he felt they would provide, he found it "difficult to vote for this" because of what he felt was overwhelmingly negative student opinions.
In the end, the personal opinions of the Assembly members won out, with many members who previously told of their friends' negative reactions voting for it.
Even some members who expressed numerous personal problems with the locking plan voted for it after opposing it in debate.
"I think this is a bad idea to begin with," Scott Jacobs '99 said. "I feel this is a solution for a city college."
Jacobs along with Dave Altman '99, Matthew Benedetto '00, Karyn Brudnicki '01, Greg Chittim '01, Dorkey, Dave Gacioch '00, James Gallo '99, President-elect Josh Green '00 and Serenity Olsen '01 voted for the lock proposal.
Arthur Desrosiers '99, DeVito, Amanda Green '01, Whitney Gulick '01, Chance Hill '01, Dean Krishna '01, Olga Kulinets '01 and Domingo Martinez '00 opposed the proposal.
Athena Lentini '01 and Snyder abstained from voting.
A series of incidents involving vandalism and unwanted attention in Streeter residence hall at the end of last term prompted recent discussions of the College's door locking policies.
The new plan also calls for the installation of campus telephones at the main entrances to each residence hall to allow non-students to call inside.
Eckels called the plan a "$12,000 experiment" which would test the waters for a more expensive electronic card access system.
After the meeting Josh Green told The Dartmouth he was not concerned about casting one of his first major votes as Assembly president-elect against the majority opinion of the student body.
"I think what I felt ... was a distinction between what I feel and what a majority of the students feel," he said.
"It's important for every member to vote for what he or she thinks is best for the student body," Green said. "I think tonight is the beginning of a major discussion ... not the end."
The Assembly also voted last night to support a resolution urging the College to divest its endowment from tobacco stock.
Twelve students voted in favor of the resolution and three opposed.
The major concern expressed by Assembly members was that the resolution set a precedent for future divestment arguments.
Many members said concern about tobacco does not compare to issues of moral significance raised during previous arguments about divestment and apartheid.
"By doing this we're setting precedent to divest from all things that are anti-health," Benedetto said.
Those in favor of the resolution questioned what they saw as the incompatibility of the College investing in tobacco stock while at the same time funding projects such as the C. Everett Koop Institute.
Koop made tobacco a major issue during his time as surgeon general under President Ronald Reagan. He remains an advocate against smoking.
