When security officers start teaming up with community advisors (CAs) tonight to rove the campus' dormitories, we can all agree that campus housing will become a tad safer.
But, as several students and CAs have already suggested, that safety may come with a price tag.
It seems the Residential Education-Campus Police teamup has dragged the ever-daunting battle between security and privacy to our campus' doorstep.
Many skeptical campus-dwellers have started to ask whether or not the officers' presence is necessary in the dorms, wondering if the new initative is really just a party crackdown masked as "community policing."
For those of you pondering that avenue of thought, consider: If Campus Police really wanted to get a stranglehold on the flow of booze and drugs on this campus, wouldn't they simply establish bag searches and checkpoints throughout our quiet little slice of Ewing?
The security officers are being placed on patrols in the dorms not to snoop around for your stash of Nattie Light or the plastic container full of green you so cleverly tucked under your "That's what she said" T-shirt, but to make sure you wake up Saturday morning in one piece.
While the ResEd staff does all it can to make life on campus as safe and comfortable as possible, they are not trained for emergency situations.
If one of your friends goes over the edge one night, a roving security officer may have the basic medical knowledge to get him or her through until someone more qualified arrives.
But it's easy to defend the decision when you start envisioning the worst-case scenario.
As one freshman suggested, the presence of a boy in blue does tend to make a college student's neck hair stand at attention. That's where the safety vs. privacy issue comes in to play again.
Are you willing to trade the relatively easy-going nature of your CA for the presence of a trained security official whose presence might make you worry whether or not you're doing something wrong, but might be able to save your life?
