It’s February. It’s 20 degrees outside, give or take. You’ve gone to see one of your friends in a different dorm. You call them to let them know you’re outside — that you’re waiting — but get sent to voicemail. You send a text. Then another. Then another. They’ve fallen asleep, a nap gone long, but you don’t know that. So you wait. And you wait. You’re cold. This sucks.
Being barred entry to a dorm is, admittedly, a relatively small issue. It’s annoying to wait, but most people can stomach the cold. It’s a drag to retrieve your friends from your building’s entrance, but odds are you’ll do it. Still, minor inconveniences like this have a ripple effect on student life — a slightly colder, slightly lonelier and slightly more annoying campus experience. Limiting student’s swipe access to dorms on campus is a false proxy for public safety that ultimately creates inconvenience for inconvenience’s sake. That should change.
As it stands, the University only grants students swipe access to residence halls they currently reside in. This approach reflects an administrative philosophy that treats dorms solely as lodging areas — rooms for students to sleep in at night and leave for classes in the morning. By virtue of swipe access exclusivity, even common spaces and kitchens are commodified and turned into underutilized clubhouses, rather than inclusive third spaces that could offer students another communal site or study spot.
Students are required to live on campus for at least three years, which means dorms are the most essential — and practically the only — physical piece of social infrastructure students lay claim to. If undergrads want to be together with any modicum of privacy, they can try to finagle their way into one of few private library study rooms, whatever empty classrooms are available, or, most practically, one of their dorms. This should be the easiest thing in the world. Yet, the swipe access policy creates a literal barrier to entry, an undue inconvenience that makes utilizing the private space the University has already granted you that much more unpleasant.
Speaking of inconvenience, I ask you now to think of the humble student in between classes or lying on an unfamiliar quad in desperate need of a restroom. Under current University policy, places like Patriots Court or Keeney Quadrangle become bathroom deserts. There are, of course, many bathrooms in the surrounding dorms, but if you can’t swipe in, you’re out of luck. As a result, these otherwise idyllic green spaces become implicitly exclusive, limiting Brown’s amenities — which should be available to all — to dorm residents only.
The University may argue that limited swipe access is a means of protecting public safety, but in reality it does quite the opposite. As it stands, because so many students are made to wait outside dorms to see their friends, a norm has developed of holding the door open for those waiting around, while some prop doors open with bricks so they never close.
Three years ago a man was charged for breaking into Wayland House and entering a student’s dorm room. If doors aren’t being left half open for anyone to walk-in, perhaps incidents like this one can be prevented. The idea that limiting swipe access helps public safety sounds good on paper, but in practice, all it does is incentivize habits that make dorms less secure and safe for their residents.
Now I want you to picture that same February night. It’s 20 degrees outside, or so you hear. That harsh weather is of no consequence to you. You’re already inside, heading up the stairs and knocking on your friend’s door. They wake up, they come to the door and wouldn’t you know it: They’re so happy to see you. You step in, you watch a movie and drink tea and share a laugh. Better, isn’t it?
The fix is so obtusely easy and would make life just that much better for all students. I beg of thee, Brown: think of the poor, shivering, rained on, near self-soiling student waiting longingly for a lethargic friend to rescue them from the harsh outdoors and grant all of us undergrads swipe access to dorms on campus.
Oscar Noxon ’27 can be reached at oscar_noxon@brown.edu. Please send responses to this column to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
