An Unsafe Attitude

"WE cannot prevent a person who is determined to be here for an unauthorized purpose from being here," said Science Center Director Nona Strauss last week, when the University postponed its plans to tighten security at the Science Center in the wake of a rape in the building last December.

That attitude about campus security is the only thing that will prevent Harvard from providing a safer work environment for faculty, staff and students. The Science Center is a Harvard facility, and the University has a responsibility to ensure that working there is safe, particularly since it is the only study area with 24-hour access.

It is commendable that the administration replaced the student guards in the building with official, armed guards in January. That move was a good first step. But it is not enough.

The next step in the University's plan was to lock the east, west and north entrances to the Science Center each night. A security guard would then have been seated facing the only entrance to the building, the one across from the Yard. After 10 p.m., visitors to the building would have had to show University identification.

These steps would not be difficult to implement and would greatly increase the safety of members of the Harvard community who wish to use the Science Center late at night.

BUT the plan did not go into effect because of faculty complaints that it would restrict their use of the building, not only because graduate students and faculty often park on Oxford Street and need access to the east entrance, but also because professors sometimes have visitors meet them in the building.

These considerations are not pressing enough to prevent implementation of a tighter security plan. The plan could be modified so that the east entrance to the building also remained open, with a second security guard posted at that door. If faculty, staff or students wish to have guests in the Science Center, they can accompany them into the building.

The University must go even farther, though, than this initial plan to lock the doors and check identification. It seems that Harvard is looking for the easy way out of a problem which must be addressed. The stairways and elevators in the Science Center should be more carefully monitored, and even locked, so that "a person with an unauthorized purpose" does not have access to the quiet upper floors where people often study or work alone.

IF the University decides to accept its responsibility in making the Science Center safer, which it must, it will still only have begun to solve a campus-wide problem. Security must be a priority not only at the Science Center, but all over the University.

Last week a group of women started a new program to provide walking escorts to students, staff and faculty members who are out late at night. The program is intended to supplement the University's one-car escort service that shuts down at 3 a.m. These students should not have to provide a service which Harvard has an obligation to give to its community.

The University must recognize its responsibility to the staff, faculty and students who work here, and begin to seriously implement plans ranging from making the Science Center safe to providing a better staffed all-night escort service. Perhaps they will then be able to prevent people who do not belong on the campus or in the buildings from making life less safe for those who do.