Students Locked Out by College's P.R. Priorities

Author: Kevin King ’02

President John McCardell's recent unilateral decision to require that students' homes be locked in the future strikes me as a very, very poor decision for a number of reasons. Most of all, I see his choice to settle the matter of whether dorms will in fact be locked or not before thoroughly investigating the facts and overall needs relevant to campus safety as a cop-out that reflects what I believe to be his motivation to defer to the good of his career over the good of the College. I do not make such a strong accusation lightly, nor do I intend to do so disrespectfully. In light of the following reasons, I believe that the College community will suffer a great deal due to image-oriented career considerations within the administration.

I begin by submitting the argument that McCardell's decision was likely uninformed. In fact, President McCardell went so far as to preclude Community Council from investigating important issues and presenting its findings to him. In my mind, extensive fact-finding regarding the nature of the ongoing threat to college students, the type and frequency of various forms of crime on campus, concerns advocated by students and specific responses which might be tailored to respond to these problems are necessary before making any decisions concerning campus safety policy. In so many words, good decisions must rest on good research. At an academic institution where preparing for class and doing one's homework are demanded of the students, I find it appalling that McCardell found it unnecessary to do so himself, let alone have others do it for him.

Why would McCardell pre-empt the Community Council and prevent that body from a full consideration of the state of campus safety needs when we as a Council were fully prepared to do so? Why make an uninformed decision when qualified students, faculty and staff are willing to work hard to give you the tools to make an informed one? The answer, I think, traces back to the fact that the results of such a study are vital to the College community's interest, but far less useful to his career or image.

Without that information or otherwise presenting the basis for his judgment in his letter, McCardell must have been "persuaded" by something else that the 'lockdown' was necessary, likely by something more personal than pragmatic.

Alas, McCardell was probably influenced by the need for an outward appearance of administrative competence and swift decision making, as well as the impact such an image would have on his career. I do not for one minute believe that McCardell's decision was based on a genuine concern for student safety — for if it was, he certainly would have waited for Community Council to perform its comprehensive review and then base a reasoned decision on that review. His motivation, I think, essentially is derived from the law of College administration that one should never allow the appearance of trouble "on his watch." I base this assertion on the following facts and examples.

Five days after the incident in Hadley, McCardell agreed to have students' homes 'locked down,' even though he knew that many students' keys did not work on doors to their dorms, and that the necessary infrastructure would result in many new problems for students and campus safety in general. In the short intervening time since initially approving the temporary 'lockdown,' McCardell has ignored the Student Government Association (SGA), a pending student referendum, and has also resisted compiling or disclosing evidence which might lead to an informed or consensus decision. Concerns of college liability, while part of a valid legal question, were largely disposed of at the Jan. 7 Community Council meeting. Knowing that liability did not require a permanent locking solution, McCardell could not have based his decision on that issue.

Additionally, student leaders have been pressing McCardell for months, if not years, to install blue light safety phones on campus which the college has already purchased. McCardell's telling response to the blue light effort, prior to the attack in Hadley, had consistently been a refusal on the grounds that the phones would make the campus appear to be unsafe and might make Middlebury unattractive to visitors or other outsiders. His recent change of heart tells me that his locking decision was not likely a result of a genuine concern for student safety, but rather a move calculated to show that he "did something" that he could write to parents and potentially to lawyers about in terms of protecting students. Put alternatively, McCardell didn't care an ounce about improving security measures at Middlebury College until implications for his job came about.

All of the above point towards an almost obsessive concern for the college's external image and his career's well being on McCardell's behalf. These concerns, while not entirely unhealthy on their own, have become problematic because they have grown so great that McCardell has stopped thinking about the internal needs of Middlebury College and its students. McCardell rushed to judgment so quickly that he has made a decision which I believe the evidence will show, in time, is harmful to our sense of community, destructive of one of our distinctive admissions advantages, and highly detrimental to social and academic life on campus.

Soon enough, a system will be in place to lock our homes on a permanent basis - a system which will likely address few, if any of the security concerns which actually affect the student body, while other, more pressing concerns will likely go unnoticed. We need to take steps to secure our campus, and the reality of the situation is such that the steps we take need to provide substantive protection, not the mere appearance thereof. I submit that locking doors will do nothing more than change when and how crime occurs on campus, but only good research can truly tell.

The locking system will provide to outsiders and our president's future employers a clear and concise sign that John McCardell did something on his watch about safety at Middlebury. What the outsiders will likely never see, but each one of use sees now, is that John McCardell certainly did do something about safety on campus — he just didn't take the time or effort to do the right thing.

Kevin King '02 is a Senior Class Senator and a member of Community Council.