NSCAD students divided over key card security system

New system raises security and cost issues

NSCAD University is moving to a key card access security system, but some students worry it will be too easy to bypass. Photo: Laura Hochman

Fifth-year NSCAD University student Kerrin Kelly enters a campus building and can go into any studio at the school.

This soon will be a thing of the past as her 24-hour access will be traded for a new key card access security system that will only allow her after-hours access to studios related to the courses she is enrolled in.

NSCAD is making the change to cut costs but students are divided on the new system.

NSCAD has a 24-hour, open-door policy for its three campuses: Granville, located in a block of heritage buildings in downtown Halifax; the Academy building adjacent to the Halifax Citadel; and Port campus, a new building overlooking the harbour.

NSCAD's website boasts of its studios for sculpture, wood, metal, film and a professional soundstage, among other visual arts workshops.

To gain access to the studios after-hours, students must enter through the front entrance of the school where a security guard from a private security company is stationed. Students must present an ID card and sign in and out when they enter and leave.

Kenny, a film and photography major, says she is concerned with the new system because people will no longer have to sign in.

One person can swipe their card and others can "piggyback" on the swipe and enter the school without their entrance being recorded. She worries that people can also call a friend who already swiped into the school and be let in through a side door after hours.

Second-year students Mamie Bell, Gabriel Parniak and Jenna Marks say all this already happens. Students are supposed to leave through the main entrance says Bell, "but there are so many other exits that people leave through those and don't sign out."

Parniak thinks the switch is great and that the university does need to save money. He says that, for him, the 24-hour access was a big reason he chose the school. "Students couldn't meet their deadlines otherwise."

"But," says Marks, "we will still have access with the new system." Even though students won't have complete access to all studios, Marks asks, "why would anyone need to get into another studio?"

"That's the whole point," Parniak says, "to keep people out of where they shouldn't be."

Kenny says that students were told that security guards will still be on call, but if something goes wrong, "who knows what will go down before they get there?"

Though she is for the new system, Bell believes that whatever access and security issues the university experiences now will probably stay the same after the new system is installed. "It's just a matter of saving money".

NSCAD is paying for the new system with government grants it received for infrastructure development.

Alex Doyle, NSCAD's director of facilities management, says he hopes to have the new system up and running on the Port campus by January.

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