Late last February, I wrote an article in The Rotunda titled, “Protection Over Convenience: Beach and Wooding Discuss Card Access.” The article discussed how the hours of closed access to buildings may impede certain majors that require more time outside of the classroom to finish work, including biology majors, art majors and more.
When writing the article, I spoke with Chief of the Longwood University Police Department (LUPD) Bob Beach and Senior Manager of the Office of Integrated Security Services Debra Wooding to learn more.
In the article, I wrote, “Beach said the restriction of time access to academic buildings is to ensure ‘a safe environment.’ Wooding added that one cause of limited access to academic buildings after certain hours of the night is past acts of vandalism.”
Further reason in locking the buildings is to prevent theft of expensive school equipment.
At the time, I did agree with them on the reasoning behind why students are fully locked out of campus buildings past 12 a.m. I could agree that it did prevent any worries about students late into the night. I could agree that protection over convenience was reasonable, and I left it at that.
While I did not contact either Beach or Wooding for this column, the reason why is because in this moment there is nothing I feel I need to report on, and nothing exactly “new” has happened that may cause the story to change in any way.
What causes me to bring up the same issue almost a year later, though, is that while I agree with safety, I still continue to hear the same frustrations from students around me, and it’s hard to keep down my own frustrations as well.
As an art student, I understand what it’s like to not be able to work outside of Bedford Hall. As a freshman in Curry Residence Hall, when I would work on larger pieces, there would be cut paper, rulers and pencils strewn across the floor, which I regret may have been to the dismay of my roommate at the time. The room was cramped, but big enough for two people to live in, but not enough for even one person to work in.
As a sophomore in South Cunningham Residence Hall, I tried to avoid making an outright mess that could disrupt my roommate from her own work, but unfortunately there was still not enough space. While I tried to keep my work mess contained, everything would still at some point spread to the middle of the room. It wasn’t the kind of environment to work in or sleep next to, but what was worse was that while my roommate at the time was understanding, the last thing I wanted to do was have my work impede her own.
Now, even as a junior in Lancer Park with my own enclosed room to clutter and make a mess of, it is still just a space to live in, not to work in. With carpeted floors now, I have to avoid painting, let alone even take out my tubes of paint. The walls are so thin that I can hear the buzzing of the phone of whoever lives above me. You can’t even sneeze without someone across the floor hearing you, so there’s no way I can really delve into any work without becoming some kind of a nuisance.
But as an art major with a concentration in drawing and painting, it’s not impossible to put a pencil on a paper in some size of space. It’s still work that is possible to be transported.
For art majors with a concentration in photography, though, what are they supposed to do? They can’t turn their bathrooms into dark rooms. Photography is the kind of work where you need more than just a bedroom shared by two; you need a room dedicated for work, and when it takes hours and hours to develop, 12 a.m. becomes almost like a jail sentence.
Biology majors who have lab times are debilitated just as much, if not more. It’s true that the equipment provided by the campus to students for labs can be a hefty price, and because of that, it makes it all the more difficult to be able to work anywhere else but the labs.
You can’t take the lab equipment home with you. Your lab has to be your home.
And that’s how many majors have to treat their workspace.
Longwood University is a great school in that it challenges its students to challenge themselves outside of the classroom. More so, the fact that the Longwood University Police Department places safety above convenience should be something highly regarded and praised.
But by locking the doors to the only places students can challenge themselves academically, it is doing more than creating “a safe environment”; it is creating a smothered environment.
*** This editorial is an opinion stated by the writer and does not represent the views of The Rotunda or Longwood University.
