Campus precautions
Last week in a span of less than twenty-four hours, five fraternities were robbed, with the thieves taking away laptops, TVs and cash. With the increase in crime not only in Greek housing, but also all around Tech and the greater Atlanta area, students should act with greater caution. While Tech police generally keeps campus safe for students, as members of an urban community Tech students should not be lulled into a sense of security that stops them from taking precautions to keep themselves and their property safe.
Students should make sure to always lock their room doors even if there is supposed to be another outside lock to keep intruders out. Fraternities often have key codes on their houses to keep out people who don’t live there, but this isn’t enough protection to totally prevent someone from breaking into the rooms inside if all the interior doors are open. After all, door codes can be passed to other people, and sometimes the doors aren’t even securely shut to begin with. While the blame for things stolen is not put on the people who were robbed, if the theft of something as valuable as a laptop can be avoided by simply locking a door, the lock is a precaution worth taking.
Also, Tech students should remember to be aware of their surroundings at all times. Just because students are on campus does not mean that they are immune from an armed robbery. Sitting anywhere alone at 3:30 in the morning is a pretty good way to get robbed even within the protective bubble of campus. Not only can thieves come onto campus from outside to slip into a building and take a laptop, but unfortunately some of these robbers could be Tech students with access already.
None of this is being said to scare students. At Tech, robberies are fairly uncommon and the campus is pretty safe. However, there is no reason not to take precautions and ensure that these isolated events don’t become more common.
Welcome new dean
After the unexpected passing of the former Dean of Architecture Thomas Galloway in March 2007, it will be good to finally have a new dean. Alan Balfour looks like he will be a good fit here at Tech. Balfour was formerly the Director of the Architecture Program at Tech for ten years, so he is already familiar with the Tech community. He should be easily able to settle into the department and carry it forward in a positive direction. Also, with a focus on sustainability, he should be able to make the School of Architecture progressively better. Balfour has an interdisciplinary focus and it will be exciting to see him intertwine the elements of architecture and music .