Dorm 'Lockdown' to Remain in Effect McCardell Charges Community Council with Investigating Alternatives

Author: Tim McCahill Managing Editor

Middlebury College President John McCardell issued a memorandum Tuesday to Dean of Student Affairs Ann Hanson and Student Co-Chair of Community Council Erica Rosenthal '02.5 declaring that "locking the residence halls is a prudent precaution that must be part of any long-term safety policy."

The decision, made in concert with the President's Executive Council — an advisory committee comprised of senior College administrators — comes more than six weeks after a Middlebury student was assaulted and robbed in his room in Hadley Hall. The incident, which is still under investigation by the Middlebury Police Department, prompted the Department of Public Safety to lock all doors on campus residence halls.

Speaking of the investigation, Middlebury Police Chief Tom Hanley said that this "is not a dead case by any stretch of the imagination." Although no arrests have been made, investigators are pursuing a number of "active leads" which indicate "certain people may be involved."

He went on to say that "the investigation involves a lot of interviews and chasing after leads, which often result in dead ends."

Lisa Boudah, associate dean of student affairs and director of Public Safety, said she feels "there is strong recognition that we are more vulnerable with the doors unlocked late at night," which was brought to light by the Hadley incident.

"Even though Middlebury and the state of Vermont are safe places, crime does happen and we need to be aware of it," she said.

Student reaction to the Department's decision proved to be a heated one. On Dec. 7, 2001, the Student Government Association (SGA) convened an "emergency" session open to all members of the College community to deliberate on a proposed bill calling for an immediate end to the so-called "lockdown" of College dormitories. At the same time, the bill — sponsored by Class of 2002 Senators Kevin King and Nina Kieves — urged the SGA to "hold an extensive and well-researched examination of current campus safety policies."

The bill passed unanimously in the SGA Senate.

During its first meeting of 2002 Sunday, the Senate voted to create a subcommittee with the task outlined in the December bill and, according to SGA President Brian Elworthy '02.5, the body would also examine "whether locking dorms is appropriate."

The subcommittee has six members, including two students who are not members of the SGA.

At Monday's meeting of the Community Council, a body comprised of students, faculty and staff which makes recommendations directly to McCardell, another subcommittee was established to examine issues similar to those being researched by the SGA group.

The Community Council subcommittee is comprised of Associate Provost Tim Spears, Schoenfeld, Stefanie Beyer '02, Derek Mahoney '04 and Erin Sullivan '04.5.

In accordance with President McCardell's memorandum, the Community Council tasked its subcommittee with assessing the various types of measures that can be taken to promote safety on campus while guaranteeing complete accessibility to all College residential buildings.

In addition, a motion sponsored by Elworthy that called upon the Department of Public Safety to change the time at which doors start to be locked from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m., was included in the subcommittee's agenda.

Elworthy's motion passed with the condition that Boudah investigate the feasibility of this change and present her findings at next week's Community Council meeting.

After hearing of McCardell's decision to incorporate locking the dorms into a long-range safety plan, however, the Council convened again on Tuesday to formulate a new approach to researching the current policy of locking residence hall doors in the hopes of drafting alternative policies and presenting those to the President for future deliberation.

Elworthy said that, although two separate subcommittees exist, both will be in regular contact.

"We hope that the decisions reached by the SGA subcommittee will be taken into consideration by the Community Council subcommittee," he stated.

"We need to make sure that whatever the SGA subcommittee decides is considered, that it comes as a voice of the students and that it represents the voice of the students."

"In light of this decision, I renew the charge to the Community Council to take a comprehensive look at the issue of campus safety," McCardell wrote in his memorandum to Hanson and Rosenthal.

"This study should include a thorough assessment of campus security and in terms of incidents of campus crime — committed by both community members and [non-community] members."

It remains unclear how long this assessment will take, although both Elworthy and McCardell indicated the necessity for expediency in interviews with The Middlebury Campus. " … The sooner Community Council can come up with these recommendations, the sooner we can implement them," the President wrote in an e-mail response to questions posed by The Campus.

Elworthy advised proceeding with caution. "I'll be perfectly honest: we have a very full agenda in the Community Council, and we have a very full agenda in the SGA. This is a discussion that needs to be ongoing, it needs to be continuous — but we need to make sure that we didn't jump the gun," he explained.

Elworthy expressed frustration with what he perceived to be a lack of student representation in the decision to continue to lock College residence halls in the long term. Referring to the decision, he said "I feel as though if we take a step that is this profound [locking doors], that will have an enormous impact on the way we live our lives, we need to engage students as much as we possibly can in the decision-making process."

An SGA-sponsored referendum on the "lockdown" that began this morning at 12:01 a.m. and will last until late Thursday evening, Elworthy noted, was one means of achieving greater student representation.

"It's very easy for the administration and [Director of Public Safety Lisa] Boudah to ignore 17 students who cast a vote on issues that range from locking dormitories to placing copy machines in more buildings," Elworthy said.

"[The referendum] will augment any future conversation because it's going to every single administrator who decides in the end."

McCardell conceded in his memorandum that "I realize that this decision [to lock residence hall doors] will disappoint many students precisely because it appears to diminish these treasured features of our community.

It is regrettable but, unfortunately, true, that the issues of personal freedom and personal safety are now more in conflict than ever."

McCardell went on to write that "[although] I do not believe it is possible to create a completely risk-free environment, I do believe it is possible, and indeed is incumbent upon us, to create an environment that reduces risk and that takes reasonable precautions to protect us from the most prevalent or probable threats to our safety."