If I could say one thing to Dean Nelson, it would be, "Hey, I like your beard." If I could say two things, the first would be regarding the beard, and the second would be, "For the love of Christ! Don't lock the doors!"
Please, please don't lock the doors. I live in my fraternity. I don't even have a personal stake in this. It's just the idea of it. We are Dartmouth. We are not Harvard. We do not have to have our doors locked like Harvard or Yale. Yale is not exactly in a great town. Connecticut's problem is they have no infrastructure. I personally think Connecticut is the worst state ever invented, though if Long Island were a state ... but I digress.
Locking doors entails a ton of loot, a hassle for students, S&S and FO&M, and a whole lot of controversy over a problem that doesn't exist. The only theft and vandalism that goes on on this campus happens among Greek houses (all harmless and in good fun, mind you). Therefore, they have locks. And putting locks on doors won't keep anybody out. It works at Greek houses because you know who is supposed to be there and who isn't. Nobody from town is ever on campus, and all the students have IDs that will get them in, so what exactly are we trying to prevent? The EBA's man going on a killing spree after getting stiffed on a tip? The way I've heard it explained to me is that it's a safeguard. That if someone were ever sexually assaulted or murdered or something bad happened, everyone would ask why the doors weren't locked. That doesn't happen here! Do you blame the farmer for not closing the flue when a tornado sends a cow flying down his chimney, spraying cow guts willy-nilly? The b
ottom line is, if a rapist or a killer is going to do something, card swipe door locks aren't going to stop him. I broke into Harvard when I was there this fall. Their locks are easy to get around. You just wait for somebody to open it. "Oh, thanks, I left my key in my room ..." I will personally leave every dorm door I can propped open.
The other explanation I heard, this one will really piss people off, is that the electronic card swipe is a way of monitoring people's movements. You go into a dorm by swiping your card. That was the last place you were seen if you need to be found. I personally do not acknowledge the right of the College to have that information. Should theft happen, and a member of my fraternity was in the dorm at the time, I guarantee he'll get questioned. Nobody who is going to commit a serious crime is going to be dumb enough to use the card swipe anyway, and there is no way of recording when people leave, without video cameras (hush, hush), so I don't understand that justification.
One other important reason not to lock them is it locks dogs out. That's just wrong.
Then there is the cost. We're now locked out of Webster Hall. We're apparently also locked out of Loew without the Hop's "official sponsorship." Student life is supposedly a priority for President Wright. Well, to me, half a million dollars could be better spent building a huge jungle gym on the center of the green. Imagine how badass that would be! We could only set it up for big weekends or something, and then everyone would come out and just chill on this absolute monstrosity. Monkey bars? Are you kidding me? That's something that would get people to this college. You want higher application rates? Get a 60 foot high fireman's pole. BOOM! Or run a zipline from the tower room to the Hop. Turn the green into a giant moon bounce. Dig underground tunnels for student use between dorms and class buildings. It was done in Webster Hall, why not somewhere that people actually care about? Take that money and buy the College a trip to the paintball park. Build a new parking lot. Buy p
ersonal go-karts for everyone. Rent a bunch of planes and make it rain beer for a day. Embezzle the money and buy yourselves new cars, just don't lock the doors. Buy every dorm a mascot dog. Build a new sorority. Give every student a thousand dollars. Give me half a million dollars. GET THE SNOW OFF THE SIDEWALKS! This is the worst winter since I've been here regarding ice and snow. I wouldn't mind if we paid half a million dollars to get that taken care of.
And lastly, it's just not right. We're the College on the Hill. We don't need to lock our doors. Locking our doors makes us paranoid. It makes us elitists to the town. They don't come on campus anyway, but we're going to lock our doors in case they get any ideas. It makes us slaves to the slimmest of possibilities and the fattest of insurance policies. Is that Dartmouth? Does it make sense, from a Dartmouth perspective? If it does, something has gone seriously awry since the day I chose to come here. Oh yeah, and Harvard sucks.
