Housing Office institutes new system for lockouts

The Undergraduate Housing Office implemented a new lockout policy this year, requiring students to pick up a temporary loaner key from the housing office in MacMillan Building if they get locked out during regular business hours. If the loaner key is not returned within 24 hours, the borrower will be charged $75 to pay for a lock change. Students locked out after regular business hours can still call Public Safety free of charge. According to the Public Safety website, students will also be charged for after-hours lockouts beginning next semester, though administrators emphasized that this proposal is still under consideration.

The new policy is aimed at reducing Public Safety calls by encouraging students to assume more responsibility for their keys, University administrators said.

“With the previous system, there was no incentive for students to be responsible with their keys, and the number of lockouts each year was extremely high,” Melissa Plaskonos, deputy director of housing for operations, said in an e-mail. “By having students come to the housing office during the day to pick up a temporary key, we hope that students will have an incentive to bring their keys with them and be more responsible.”

The lock change fee, which also applies to students who lose their keys, represents a $25 price hike over last year’s rate. The increase reflects higher labor and material costs, Plaskonos said.

Though the new policy was instituted by the housing office, Paul Ominsky, the director of Public Safety, said in an e-mail that his department encouraged the change.

“Because of the high number of lockouts each year, we discussed with housing ... a way that students could become more responsible for bringing their keys with them,” he explained.

Public Safety had been responding to roughly 12,000 lockouts annually in recent years, Ominsky said. He noted that when room entry requests conflict with higher priority incidents, locked out students face significant waits.

“Responding to lockouts took about 30 minutes, which equates to 6,000 hours each year. We wanted students to take responsibility for their keys and better deploy the resources of Public Safety by reducing the hours spent on responding to lock outs,” Plaskonos said.

Public Safety Lt. William Kugel said that it was too early to estimate the impact of the new policy on the student workers employed by Public Safety to respond to lockouts.

"Nobody knows, because if there are more people locked out during the day, then those people will go get the key, and if more people are locked out at night ... the student lockout will have to assist them," Kugel explained.

Some students reacted negatively to the policy and questioned its efficacy.

“I think it puts students in singles at a disadvantage,” Elena Dillard ’11 said. “And I think it also encourages students to violate housing rules that request we don’t tape off our doors or leave them unlocked.”

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Ominsky acknowledged that students in singles may be most impacted, but he noted that there are times when students with roommates request entry as well.

Chris Clement ’14 was locked out of his room in Whitman College his second day on campus. Doors in Whitman, like those in many campus dorms, lock automatically upon being closed.

“I thought that it was unfair that I got locked out in my first week of school and almost had to pay $75 dollars on the first offense,” Clement said. “Luckily, I found my key.”

Plaskonos noted that the lockout policy is still in development, with the housing office considering a fee for after-hours lockouts that could be instituted as early as this spring.

“As of today, the only change made to the existing policy is that students need to come to the housing office to borrow a key during business hours if they are locked out,” she explained. “We are exploring other proposed changes to better ensure student responsibility for their keys, which will be discussed at the Undergraduate Life Committee in October. We look forward to the committee’s input to determine how best to proceed with the proposals.”

— Senior writer Erica Che contributed reporting.