By Leighton Schneider
Fordham Public Safety has announced the Walsh Hall security gate will be open all-day starting in January.
The Walsh Hall gate is currently only open to students only between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. with a security guard on duty. Students must tap their I.D. to gain access to campus. Students were dissatisfied because the gate was not open during the daytime hours.
“I do find that when I want to get out of the building, off-campus, for lunch or the deli it is kind of annoying to choose if I want to go to the FMH gate or the Finlay gate,” said Scott Abuso, FCRH ’16. “24/7 is definitely going to be helpful.”
Rob Sexton, GSB ’16, thinks that not having the gate open 24 hours is ridiculous and that opening it will be “so much more convenient for us in Walsh.”
The gate has been closed during the daytime hours for the past two years. Associate Vice President of Safety and Security John Carroll told the Fordham Ram that the change to the current format was made to maximize resources, because there were no safety issues during the daytime and the Bathgate entrance was close.
Prior to this, the gate was open 24 hours a day.
Carroll said the Walsh Gate entrance will be made into a turnstile. Students will be able to use their Fordham IDs to unlock the turnstile 24 hours a day, with a special handicapped door.
The new ID cards, which were implemented in July 2013, made this change possible.
Walsh Hall residents Hanna Read, GSB ‘16, and Christopher Mazzeo, FCRH ‘16, told the Fordham Ram that opening the gate 24 hours every day will reduce the time it takes them to go to the grocery store or Dunkin Donuts because they will no longer have to walk around Finlay Hall to leave campus.
Read and several other students who are going abroad during the spring semester find it unfortunate that they will not be around for the new gate hours.
Students who live off campus are also happy about the changes, because the gate will allow easier access to campus.
“That would be awesome because I live off campus and that is the closest gate to all of my classes,” said Brian Farley, FCRH ’18. “It would be very convenient.”
Joseph Buccheri, GSB ’16, told The Fordham Ram that opening the gate 24/7 would make it easier for students who live off campus to get to all of their classes in Keating, JMH and Freeman Halls.
He also said it will help out Walsh residents by making it more convenient for them to get off campus.
Carroll also relieved any concerns for students wondering about the safety of the gate.
“We have an around-the-clock guard at the Bathgate entrance, a short distance from the Walsh Hall,” Carroll said. “We will also install security cameras to enhance the safety and security presence at Walsh.”
The project has been assigned to a vendor and the materials have been ordered. Without any weather delays, the gate will be completed before students return from Winter Break in January.
__________
Leighton Schneider is the Multimedia Editor for The Fordham Ram.
