Housing and Residential Life added a metal plate to one of the Residential Learning College gates after students held the gate open using cinderblocks.
“We added the metal plate to prevent people from trying to ‘pop’ the lock, usually with a screwdriver, or jam the lock and thus get in without using a key,” Housing and Residential Life Director Carol Roberts-Corb said.
According to Allied Barton Security officer Gloria Walker, the issue arose last semester.
During her regular rounds, Walker noticed cinderblocks holding the gate door ajar. Residents took blocks from nearby trees and planters, inserted paper cards in the door jam, and stuffed tissue paper to hold the latch back.
“I would always have to go back there and check and take the brick from the gate, because anyone can come in if the gate is open,” Walker said.
Residents were resorting to such extremes because the gate’s ID reader wasn’t working properly.
Therefore, residents couldn’t swipe their CSULB ID cards to gain access.
The ID reader is now working correctly and RLC residents can enter with ease.
Kiana Hovind, an RLC resident, said she feels safer now that the pedestrian gate has been fixed.
She had witnessed people trying to jimmy and prop open the gate a couple of times, but wasn’t quite sure of what they were doing.
“I don’t think people should be leaving the gate wide open for intruders to get in,” Hovind said. “That puts all the residents at risk. It’s pretty selfish of them.”
Yadira Contreras, RLC resident, said student safety should be a No. 1 priority, and that it was a good idea that the security update was implemented in order to improve the safety of residents. However, additional security measures may need to be taken, Contreras said.
“If it’s for safety issues and there’s more problems arising because students can go in and out, we shouldn’t even have access to the gate,” Contreras said.
She said housing should notify residents through email when there is a concern in the dorm community.
After the attack of an RLC resident who was walking by herself shortly after midnight on the intersection of Clark Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway on Sept. 13, CSULB sent a mass email notifying students of the incident.
Contreras said this method of communication should be utilized more frequently.
“That’s how I learned about the sexual assault, and that the police were going to have a meeting at the RLC to talk about how to be safer,” she said.
Like many students, Contreras said she is busy with school and involved in campus organizations and is rarely at the dorms, thus she wasn’t aware of the security problem. She would like there to be more communication between housing coordinators, resident assistants and the residents.
“I don’t like the lack of communication, and if it’s for our safety, they should be able to inform us,” Contreras said.
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