Curfew is Ineffective for UC Students

The University of the Cumberlands has a reputation as a privately funded college for enforcing its own rules to follow the aspects and virtues of a Southern Baptist institution. One of the more prominent rules that students deal with frequently is the midnight curfew Sunday through Thursday that requires the Residence Hall Security Center to lock all entrances into residence halls. At face this policy isn’t that bad and provides a sense of safety for students, however, the policy tends to be more of an annoyance than a precaution.

The Bock Building, location of the Residence Hall Security Center

            On other university campuses in Kentucky, such as EKU and Lindsey Wilson, the security policy calls for similar actions where dorm entrances are locked at a specific time and require a key for entry, but the major difference is that students with ID cards are capable of doing this themselves. UC requires students to go to the Bock Building, sometimes out of their way in cases of residents living in Mahan or Gillespie, and sign-in with security to drive to the dorm and unlock it for said student. The safety of the students on campus is a very important consideration but the process of traveling back and forth for guards and students is time-consuming, wasteful, and incoherent.

            Implicating a key card or ID swipe system makes a lot more sense to both students and faculty involved when compared to the current system. Students are often faced with study groups that last long periods of time and cannot make it in before 12:00 and even faculty that deal with traveling athletics have to account for every student at the Bock Building which can take well over 30 minutes.

Mark Watts, one of the student workers in the Bock Building, says “the whole process is just a mess. You have students constantly coming in around 12:00, 12:05 that get locked out while RA’s (resident administrators) stand there and tell them to go sign-in because they aren’t allowed to open doors after hours.”

            This happens more often than you would expect and is counteractive to what the administration is trying to uphold. How safe are the students that have to walk back across a poorly lit campus after being two or three minutes late? Sure, they can call for escorts, but isn’t that more time wasted as you wait for a guard to arrive, drive back to the Bock Building, sign-in, drive back to where you started, and then wait for them to unlock the door?

The policy means well in its idea but certainly underachieves in timeliness and order. This chaos alone calls for something more efficient and that is where reconstructing the process becomes necessary. If willing to do so, campus administration could cut out the middle man by installing card swipe systems at the smallest expense of $500 compared to the yearly expenses for paying guards to sit in a chair, including their cars and gas expenses. Over time, the system essentially pays for itself.

As long as UC employs an unnecessary rule to corral students like children then it will only serve to upset an already uneven student body. Student retention rates are low for the school and sometimes unexplainable rules and policies play a role in that. Administration is constantly trying to find ways to resolve the problem, so why not take a step in the right direction? The least the school could do is make a decision that is beneficial to both parties and help reduce tensions among the student mindset. Until that happens, expect a lot of angry faces to walk through the Residence Hall Security Center every night.