Since the card access program was implemented campuswide Feb. 4, at least six card readers, out of more than 250 across campus, have been damaged or destroyed, costing the college more than $2,000 to replace.

The damage includes pulled wires and defaced or destroyed casings. One card reader, on the second-floor loading area of East Tower, was removed altogether.

“Over the course of the last month, it has been a problem area for us,” Public Safety Director Terri Stewart said.

Public Safety Director Terri Stewart said card-reader vandalism has been a problem during the past month.

To combat the problem, Public Safety has begun to target specific areas that have seen a particularly high number of incidents. East Tower, which houses 52 card readers, is one of the most frequent targets of card-reader vandalism.

In addition to targeted patrols, campus police are using the information gained when students swipe their IDs as a way to “narrow [the investigation] down,” Stewart said. The card readers electronically transmit students’ information when an ID is scanned so police can then use that to determine who last used the device to unlock the door.

Zach Newswanger, assistant director of the Office of Residential Life, said he believes initial vandalism is a natural part of the transition.

“I had expected that we might see more [damage] than we have, and I’m pleasantly surprised to say that,” he said. “I wish we didn’t see any, but to see the smaller amount that we’ve had, I think the students are adjusting to using the readers as opposed to their keys.”

He feels that students have a tendency to experiment with any kind of new program and see how far it can be pushed.

“You have a little bit of where people test the system, like what does this entail … how is this attached, how long is it going to stay, what can I do to it?”

Newswanger, who is in charge of the card reader system, budgeted for this type of damage when creating the initiative. He said with more than 250 card readers campuswide, he was worried the college would have to replace 25 to 30 percent of the devices.

Despite being in line with projected costs, Newswanger said he has had to buy 10 replacement card readers to fix the broken readers and maintains a stock of extra devices. Each replacement to the locks on the outside of buildings costs $210, in addition to repair costs. Tyler Wagenet, the campus card coordinator, said the average price of each repair, including hardware costs and labor, is roughly $500.

“When you put in a new system like that, people test that,” Stewart said. “The point is that we’re incurring a lot of monetary damage as a result of that. It’s very expensive equipment.”

Locks on the inside of the Towers that lead from the elevators to rooms cost $337 apiece, according to Mike Sherwood, master technician in the Office of Facilities and Maintenance. Sherwood said the second floor of East Tower has taken the most damage.

While Newswanger said he believes the damage is part of the transitional process, he also attributes it to student frustration. He said when students get locked out of the building they damage the card readers in the hopes that breaking the reader unlocks the door. But damage to the devices only prevents entrance and does not actually open the door.

Residential Life has been able to use parts of the damaged card readers, as some components are still functional despite the vandalism, Newswanger said.

“What happens is if somebody damages one of them, and we replace one, since they’re all separate pieces, you don’t just throw it out; you cannibalize it a little bit.  So if a cover is still good, we keep that.”

In addition to vandalism, the card reader system has also faced the issue of residents disabling it when entering the building, Newswanger said.

“In some instances we have had cases where students have broken the lever-style door handles, causing them to be jammed in to the open position, not allowing the door to latch closed,” he said.

Newswanger said vandalism and broken locks present larger problems for other residents of a building.

“If a resident breaks this [lock], they are compromising the security for the rest of the residents on the floor,” Newswanger said. “The implementation of the card access system has actually given us a means to address these issues in an almost immediate manner, because we are able to see in the system when a door is not functioning properly.”

Despite the problems, Residential Life plans to proceed with its plans to implement the system on all buildings. Starting in the summer, the card access readers will be the only ways to unlock the doors of residential buildings. To encourage the use of the readers, an alarm now sounds in some campus buildings when students use a traditional key to enter. These buildings include East Tower, West Tower, Eastman Hall and the Circles Community Building.

Newswanger said the alarm system will be implemented in the rest of the residential buildings this week.

“Of course we’ll continue to change the setup as we deem we have to,” Newswanger said. “If we’re finding a problem where certain readers are getting ripped off more than others … we’ll address that so it doesn’t continue.”