I was sitting in my room a few weeks ago doing homework with my door locked when all of a sudden I hear someone fiddling with the lock. The door then burst open, revealing a friend standing in the doorway yelling "16.4 seconds ... a new record." Immediately I was impressed - it only took 16.4 seconds to break into my room. Then I found out that it actually took 16.4 seconds to break into four rooms in the corner of my hallway, and my room took less than one second. I asked to see the advanced lock picking tool that would be able to break into four University dorm rooms in 16 seconds, and needless to say I was quite surprised when that tool turned out to be a wire hanger.
I would have hoped that a University like Brown that spends millions of dollars on its security services per year would have made my lock sound enough to stand up the technological wizardry of the wire hanger. In fact, I voiced this desire to the Office of Residential Life and have since had my door "fixed" three separate times. Each time the person from Facilities Management assures me that "no one is gonna be able to break this baby open," but I return to my room later that day to see my mattress flipped over and a note telling me how many seconds it took to get in. I've now decided that it is impossible for my lock to provide real safety. Brown students pay around $5,030 per year to live in Brown dormitories, which translates to around $590 per month - I would have hoped that $590 per month would have afforded me a lock requiring a more sophisticated pick.
Little things like my lock really make a big difference in our experience at Brown. This is a University that thinks big fitness centers, concert halls, or a student union in 2048. But in the midst of all of these big projects, the little things - and the students that live here currently - are sometimes overlooked.
I understand that donations to big universities like Brown are in many cases earmarked for huge projects like a Life Sciences Building. This is likely because people would prefer to have their names on a building or an auditorium rather than on a hanger-proof lock to my room or on the two-ply toilet paper which I think would make every single Brown resident less grumpy.
But even big projects require little improvements to make them reach their potential. For instance, the Plan for Academic Enrichment, which I think has been very good for the school, wasn't accompanied by an initiative to help improve classroom space on campus. Part of the attraction of getting very high-paid and impressive faculty members from other schools is their ability to give interesting and engaging lectures. This becomes more difficult when they are forced to give classes in rooms without proper sound systems, air-conditioning or adequate desks for students. Learning environment plays a huge role in the attention span of students, so when I'm cramped into a dark corner of Wilson Hall, trying to write right-handed on a lefty desk because that's the only one that's left and straining to hear a professor who's yelling because the sound system doesn't work, I'm going to be less likely to understand the intricacies of international migratory patterns.
Concentrating on the big buildings rather than some smaller less visible projects like dormitory renovations (which are occurring but too slowly) means that real changes won't be able to be appreciated by current Brown students. I appreciate that Brown is trying to make itself a better institution for the future, but some more attention needs to be paid to some clearly fixable problems in the present. The little things that stand in the way of the best possible experience at Brown make students like me less likely to give money to Brown in the future. That means that in 2064, when the University needs to build a brand new building for the study of E-languages, I'm not going to give any of the $42.67 that I have to my name. So for the sake of the E-languages building, could someone find me a better lock?
Adam Nelson '06 thinks that the combination of Ratty food and single-ply toilet paper is the reason that Brown students protest so much.
