Liberty University Rec Center Protects Students with Optical Turnstiles

Turnstiles help to control access and expedite entry to the facility.

Administrators at the LaHaye Fitness and Recreation Center, which is located on Liberty University’s Lynchburg campus, have installed Speedlane 300 optical turnstiles from Boon Edam to help them manage the access rights of approximately 30,000 individuals who enter their facility every week. Previously, students would simply hand their badge to a staff member who would swipe it for verification and then allow the student into the facility. This process presented numerous challenges including the inability to adequately deny entry, expedite entry to the gym during busy hours and more.

Now, every student enrolled at Liberty University is provided with an identification badge with embedded access control credentials to gain access to various Liberty facilities. The access control solution, provided by RS2, allows students to use one universal card throughout the campus, including LaHaye Fitness and Recreation Center. The new turnstiles at the recreation center provide three dedicated lanes for entry and one lane for egress.

“We can lock the turnstile gates, disable them, hold them open, grant access along with numerous other operational options, to keep traffic flowing while providing security,” said Samuel Seaborn, Associate Director, Operations, at Liberty University. “The turnstiles integrate with Liberty’s access control system to monitor who is coming into the rec center and when, and helps ensure that only students and people with proper access are allowed into the facility.”

Liberty is already looking to expand the LaHaye Fitness and Recreation Center with satellite facilities located around the campus. To maintain the level of safety throughout their campus, protect the university from liability issues and integrate with their current access control systems, Liberty hopes to outfit any new installations with Boon Edam turnstiles, which have been well recieved by students and staff.

“When they were installed, the students remarked on the futuristic design of the turnstiles,” said Seaborn. “Everyone adapted to them quickly, because they’re so easy to use.”

Liberty has also been happy with the service Boon Edam provides for maintenance and other issues. If there are any issues with the badge reader or if an internal component was malfunctioning, the integrator for Boon Edam products, Jamie Dalton at Mech-Elect, of Wake Forest, N.C., has responded quickly.

“The Boon Edam turnstiles are so simple to use, and they really help with traffic flow. In today’s environment, we’re even more concerned with properly protecting our students, and Boon Edam turnstiles help us do that,” said Seaborn. “When we expand our recreational facilities, as well as other facilities, we’re defintiely looking to Boon Edam for our entrances and exits.”


Tracie Thomas is with Boon Edam. Photo courtesy LRG.

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