Phone installations in dorms give students access to devices amid requirements to turn in phones overnight from 11 PM to 6 AM.
Over Thanksgiving break, new phones were installed in several dorms to allow for easy communication between faculty and house counselors, as well as to provide students means for contacting the Sykes Wellness Center (Sykes) or Campus Safety in the event of an emergency at night.
These installations have come alongside new charging docks in the library, and according to Mark Leonard, Director of Campus Safety, his office is exploring installing a loudspeaker notification system and more security cameras on campus.
Patrick O’Connor, Chief Information and Technology Officer, provided context on why the phones were introduced. He elaborated on the installation timeline, noting that the project will hopefully be completed in the next couple weeks.
“We decided to install them as an emergency backup on every floor in a common area… We will post some instructions about [how to use it] since students are used to using cell phones and may not know how to use a normal phone. It’s meant for any resident of a dorm, or someone who works in a dorm like a custodian to have access to a device to call in the event of an emergency. It was under discussion over the course of the summer, but we got clearance to do it after the start of school. We will try to complete it before the students return from winter break,” said O’Connor.
Sarah Scherini, Instructor in Art and a House Counselor in Paul Revere House, elaborated on the ways students are supposed to use the phones in an email to The Phillipian. In her dorm, the phones have been installed on each floor to make it easier for students to reach adults during the night in the case of an emergency.
“These phones are for emergency-only student use since 9th and 10th graders must dock their cell phones each night. There are emergency phone numbers posted by each phone… We’ve had students become ill in the middle of the night who had to make their way downstairs to wake up the house counselor on duty instead of walking a much shorter and safer distance to a phone in their hall. Beyond the necessity of them in an emergency, I hope our residents feel a sense of security knowing that there is an easier and quicker way to get in touch with us, campus safety, or emergency services if needed,” wrote Scherini in an email to The Phillipian.
Catherine Kemp, Instructor in Biology and House Counselor in Stearns House, explained that the phones will serve a different purpose in Stearns. The phones will be installed in the house counselors’ apartments to allow faculty to reach them in the case that they are needed, and are not intended for student use. Kemp noted that the change helps house counselors maintain normalcy and good health practices at night.
“I’m really excited about it, because otherwise you’re hoping that I have my cell phone on me all the time. For a house counselor, you actually have to sleep with your phone right next to you all the time. It’s fairly healthy that we just have a phone and you know you can find someone… I don’t think that there was a problem, but [installation of phones] is more stemming from the awareness about the negative impacts on your health of having your phone next to you all the time,” said Kemp.
Ryan Loh ’28, a student living in America House, notes that he has not used the phones personally. However, he notes that they could come in handy, especially given his dorm’s distance from the rest of campus.
“I haven’t really used [the phones] yet. There are three in [America] House, and nobody uses a single one,” said Loh. “I haven’t really found a reason to use the phones because I can use my phone to call or text people if I need to. In case your phone dies, you can use one. [America] House is pretty far away from the rest of campus, so it would be very hard to get help in case an emergency arose. So the phones might help.”
The Campus Safety office was not directly involved in the installation of the phones, according to Mark Leonard, Director of Campus Safety. However, Leonard noted that they are considering other ways to improve communication across campus, including installing a loudspeaker system to replace the current mass notification system, which sends information to students through text messages.
“We are actually looking at enhancing our ability to send out notifications,” said Leonard. “We’re looking at other systems that will allow us to have different speakers across campus, so that if someone doesn’t have their phone with them or the phone’s not on for some reason, then we’d still get a message out. We’re looking at things like that from a campus safety standpoint.”
Leonard also revealed that Campus Safety is looking into installing cameras on campus to ease observation and surveillance of different spaces.
“We’ve got some initiatives to add some cameras in certain areas of campus that will help us. We can check multiple spots at the same time as opposed to having an officer go to each of those locations. We’re looking to add cameras in certain locations, like the renovation of Graves Hall. Whenever there’s a new building, for example, in the Pan Center, we only added some internal cameras, but adding external cameras would help us in the event that something’s happening or to get eyes on those areas pretty quickly. That’s definitely something we’re always looking at from a safety standpoint,” said Leonard.
While Campus Safety continues to focus on student security, other recent installations on campus have aimed to improve daily student life. One of these installations includes the new charging stations in the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library (OWHL). Derek Curtis, the Programming Librarian at the OWHL, said that the new charging station was installed in response to an increase in student demand for a place to charge their devices during school hours.
“We had a number of students coming to the desk needing to charge either their laptops or their phones, and while we wanted them to be able to do that, we needed another space besides them coming to the desk to do that, so we thought we’d create a charging station,” said Curtis.
Curtis further explained that if a student wants to suggest improvements to the library, they can do so by talking to Camille Torres Hoven, Director of the OWHL. Curtis noted that the staff at the OWHL always welcomes student input.
“That would be something where they would need to talk with the director of the library, Ms. Camille Torres Hoven. You’d want to talk to her about possibilities and suggestions. We’re open to suggestions. We try to be a space that’s open to student voices and what students would like to see the library become. We want to listen,” said Curtis.
