4. Be prepared to respond to parents who are now evaluating campuses not only from an academic, but also a security perspective. When helping their children pick a college, parents are paying closer attention to the level of safety and security on a prospective campus. During freshman orientation, most parents ask UW-GB administrators about the school’s security platform.
Fortunately, addressing parental concerns will now be easier with the campus’ recent security upgrades. When students report to classes this fall, UW-GB will use a combination of the access card plus a four digit pin number for access to apartment buildings. “We expect to see a positive response from students and parents when they see the added layer of security,” says Steliga.
5. Be flexible: Security technology is always improving, but adapting it can take time and planning. For example at Quinnipiac, the university was required to reorganize staff to meet the challenges that came with the evolving access control technology. Before the project started, Terry had worked within the student identification card section. Today, he has moved to the college’s facility management department where his staff works with the other agencies that interact with the student identification cards.
“When this project first started, I would get calls from the facilities management department and the student finance office,” he says. “Now, we have one office that manages all aspects of our cards.”
Terry says his university has started to see the technology advantages of the access control system, especially when students move back into their rooms. “The residence hall can verify when each student has moved back into their rooms and if someone has checked back into college at the start of a semester. We can call that person to see if they plan on attending college. If they’re not going to use that room, we can make it available to another student.”
At UW-GB, the IT teams at the student union, residence life and academics work together to cover for each other when one of the chief administrators must leave campus. According to Polacarz, “Each of us has gone through all phases of understanding the technology requirements for every other section so we can troubleshoot problems for the other departments.”
Another adaption UW-GB has made in response to evolving technology is the creation of a special emergency Web site that alerts students about class closures due to inclement weather. “Students can get information on their phones or wireless devices,” the security chief said. “We house the server for this site at another location so if the main server goes down, we can still communicate information to our students.”
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Matt Scherer is a freelance writer. Educators who want to visit either Quinnipiac or Wisconsin-Green Bay can contact Angelo Faenza, general manager at PERSONA, (203) 603-5940 or [email protected].
