Any student who lives in a campus residence hall knows that GOCard swiping procedures are often ignored. Too many student guards fail to check the identification of residents who forget their GOCards and instead let them slip by the guard desk. This situation is both worrisome and easily rectified. There is no reason that continued neglect of the safety rules should occur, for it endangers students who live on campus.

Some might argue that properly recording the entry of a GOCard-less resident is an unnecessary inconvenience, especially when the student guard knows the resident. While signing a student in can take an extra minute or two, it is always better to be a safety stickler than too lax about GOCard policies.

Moreover, the process for signing in a resident who forgot his or her GOCard is less painful than many make it out to be. Every student guard has a housing roster that lists the residents in the building. Residents need only present another form of photo identification in order to be signed into the guest log by a friend with a GOCard. The entire procedure usually takes less than two minutes. The delay is almost negligible, and will help ensure tight security.

Student guards are also prone to lower swiping standards when a GOCard reader does not register a resident’s GOCard. While nothing in the student guard handbook indicates that such students officially need to be signed in, student guards should still quickly cross-check their names on the housing roster if they want to enter after 10 p.m. Guards ought also to advise those students that the Office of GOCard Services can remagnetize the swiping strips on their cards.

At the end of the day, student guards are on the clock for a reason. Their job is not to determine who is trustworthy and can enter a building, but simply to ensure that the double-swipe GOCard procedure is followed. Letting friends or residents without GOCards through security defeats the purpose of that security.

Granted, not every student guard is negligent about enforcing the swipe system. But the few who allow residents to sneak by are undermining the job of every other guard. Each guard is provided with a comprehensive policy manual during training, and he or she ought to follow it to the best of his or her ability. There are no excuses for leniency.

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