<p>Echoing what franglish said. Haverford has a very serious Honor Code and it is something that the school is known for. Exams are unproctored, backpacks are strewn about, and it has all worked for umpteen years. It won’t work quite that well in most universities. I think the Honor Code is a “drawing card” for many applicants.</p>
<p>Well, great for Haverford students. I suppose no non-Haverford people EVER set foot on their campus? Wait, weren’t you civilians there on tour?</p>
<p>My son is at a small LAC. Last year there was an incident where a student invited a friend to stay for the weekend. The friend proceeded to go up and down the hall at 3 am when most kids were sleeping, opening any unlocked doors and helping himself to laptops, iPods, etc. When he was confronted he took off running, amazingly campus security caught him halfway across campus. The student who invited him was horrified and furious that his friend would do that.</p>
<p>The college reminded kids again - LOCK YOUR DORM ROOM, unless you are IN the room AND AWAKE. </p>
<p>This LAC has a system where any entrance door to a dorm building lets out a loud alarm if it’s propped open for more than 45 seconds. This may have given the kids a false sense of security, but this thief was already in the building.</p>
<p>They also used to have signs in the girls’ dorms - “Welcome to LAC! Just as easily as you walked onto this campus, so can ANYONE ELSE. Don’t walk alone at night!”</p>
<p>Our kids attend a pretty “open” campus in a big urban city–LA. There are lots of people from the community & who knows where on campus and in the surrounding area. The campus security is generally highly visible but my kids know it would be foolish to leave things unlocked or lying around. It WOULD be nice to be in a safe “bubble” where you could just leave things unlocked, but unfortunately, not many of our kids or the rest of us live in places like that any more.</p>
<p>It only takes one “bad apple” who could be a guest who could harm the idylic life of the campus. Yes, it is nice when a “strong honor code” works well, but not so sure how that prepares our kids for “life after college,” which I think is very important as well.</p>
<p>My campus has a relatively low rate of crime, besides bike thefts. [Everyone here rides their bike, so if a person’s tire deflates and they don’t want to pump it up, they steal someone else’s tire, and that person steals another’s, and so on…] However, I still lock up EVERYTHING and will NEVER leave my stuff unattended. I’ve had one robbery already: I left my stuff in a friend’s car, hidden under the seat like I’ve always been taught, and someone smashed in all the windows and stole it. It happened a few miles off campus, though, and most people here know that it’s the non-students who commit lots of robberies around here.</p>
<p>Not locking doors on campus…is not very wise.</p>
<p>on our campus, some people lock their doors, others don’t. a lot of times if somebody needs to get something from somebody else, they just leave their door unlocked so they can get it.</p>
<p>it’s probably a campus thing. for example, walk through our library and you will see dozens of laptops closed and unattended, just saving a study spot while the owner goes down to print something, get a bite to eat, or take a multi-hour study break on the other side of campus.</p>
<p>kids leave their stuff lying around campus and expect it to still be there when they return hours (or days) later. And it almost always is. If it isn’t it’s been turned in and is waiting for them at the student center or security desk.</p>
<p>depends on campus.</p>
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<p>Definitely a campus culture thing. I don’t know anyone that leaves their apartments/dorms/anything unlocked, if not just out of the fear of having their desktop/homepage set to a porn website (well, at least back during undergrad).</p>
<p>As re: the person that said their kid’s lock didn’t work. One of my friends was in a partially campus owned building (1/3 of the apartments were owned/rented by the school in a large apartment building) and his doorknob would repeatedly fall off. Deadbolt wouldn’t work either. So not only could he not lock his door, but there was a giant circle saying STEAL STUFF HERE. Amazingly nothing ever got stolen!</p>
<p>I still remember when I checked into a hotel in Toronto–the door WOULD NOT LOCK! I called downstairs & they sent someone up to confirm that indeed it didn’t lock. Sent maintenance who also confirmed that it didn’t lock & couldn’t readily be repaired (making me later & later for my event–didn’t want to leave my room unlocked with all my stuff). They finally gave me another hotel room, but I was very irked at how long it took them to get to that point! We all thought it was odd that the prior occupant(s) never reported the problem (at least according to the front desk).</p>
<p>For personal safety, I would NEVER advise leaving a dwelling unlocked. You never know when someone will wander into it and what their state will be at the time–they could be drunk, drugged, violent, or confused, to name a few. Leaving a laptop untended for extended periods also does not seem like a good idea, especially when you have a lot of stuff on it that you may be VERY upset if it goes missing or gets deleted or “corrupted.”</p>
<p>I would have my kids insist on having locks to their dwelling that were fully functional & I KNOW they would use them! Landlords are responsible for providing functioning locks with keys, at a bare minimum.</p>
<p>A lot of people leave their backpacks unattended outside dining halls, right next to the signs warning that there are a lot of reported thefts in the area. There are plenty of lockers available for free, too. </p>
<p>Locking dorm rooms isn’t a big problem, since you need to swipe a student ID to get into the building (and students don’t have access to other dorms) and then you need a card key for your own room (with some rooms also requiring that you punch in the last 4 digits of your ID number).</p>
<p>I was relieved to see that our doors lock automatically when you shut them, but my idiot roommate leaves it open anyway. I live on a generally safe campus but theft is a huge problem here, which has been well established. Roommate is apparently not aware that she doesn’t live on a farm anymore. Issue of serious contention.</p>
<p>We toured a small campus (1500 students) that seemed very safe. Kids left their coats and backpacks in a coatroom next to the cafeteria. Prior to the tour, I looked up the schools crime statitistics and noticed that there had been two rapes last year. I asked the tour guide about it and she said that both happened the same night and the girls didn’t have their dorm door locked. Unfortunately, they never apprehended a suspect.</p>
<p>It works in some places, not others. On my hall, people didn’t lock their doors or secure their stuff when they went out or slept (though they often did so when the hall was hosting a party), and people sometimes left personal items in lounges. In four years of this <em>nobody</em> on my hall ever had items stolen.</p>
<p>I will note that you not only had to get through <em>two</em> locked doors to get onto my hall in the first place, but that it was on the 5th floor of a building with no elevators. I always suspected that the latter factor had a lot to do with how open we could get away with being. It was well-known that on the 1st and 2nd floors of the same building, stuff would occasionally walk away from unlocked rooms.</p>
<p>In addition, we were only a few feet away from the academic buildings, so people would go home between classes, and a substantial number of people were on hall at any given time. It was almost never empty. And we all knew each other - a hall only had about 40 people - so people would have noticed someone walking around who didn’t belong.</p>
<p>In short, we had a lot of things going for us that discouraged thieves and other intruders. It worked well for us - as I said, we had no incidents in the four years I lived there. I wouldn’t recommend it for most.</p>
<p>I’m kind of torn about this. It seems to me, though, that one should take the level of precautions that are sensible given the true level of risk. The risks of having your backpack stolen at Grinnell and at NYU may be so different that different levels of precaution are reasonable. In my suburban area, there are some people who not only always lock their cars, they also put The Club on the steering wheel every time they park, even during the day at the mall. I think this is overkill, and it would really be overkill in my small home town.</p>
<p>Honor codes are great. Trusting campuses in the middle of cornfields are wonderful. Kids who feel they’re in a safe environment…yup, I’m all for it.</p>
<p>But leaving possessions and rooms unlocked is just not smart. We’ve lived in cities, suburbs, rural small towns, you name it. We lock the house, we lock the car, it’s just common sense and the most basic piece of advice any law enforcement person will give you.</p>
<p>What advice is given by campus security at Grinnell?</p>
<p>Funny you should ask, Hunt. From the website <a href=“http://www.grinnell.edu/Offices/security/:[/url]”>http://www.grinnell.edu/Offices/security/:</a></p>
<p>The college does its utmost to make sure the Grinnell Experience is a safe experience. However, students also have a responsibility to protect themselves. The college will continue to try and eliminate the threat of crime on campus, but community members need to protect themselves. Lock doors, walk in well-lit areas, and store money and valuables in safe places.</p>
<p>I’m an alum and generally felt very safe at Grinnell. But there were occasions of non-students being on campus, including one fellow who made his way into a dorm (where the door was propped open) and into the room of two women who slept with their door unlocked. Thankfully there was no violence or injury to these young women. Please, please, please don’t do this. Lock your doors. While the crime rate may be very low in Grinnell, none of that is going to matter to you when you are the victim.</p>
<p>Too bad. It would be nice to think that there was someplace that people really didn’t have to worry about any of this. Maybe at a research base in Antarctica.</p>
<p>At West Point (which is located on a military installation, but does employ civilians) they too have an honor code. Rooms are not locked and backpacks and outerwear are left outside every classroom.
However… each cadet is assigned a trunk that locks and they keep their valuables including medication in the trunk. They are also assigned a laptop lock and are required to keep their computer locked to their desk when they are not in the room. (Yes, they get in trouble for violations)</p>
<p>Most dorms have doors that automatically lock now - this is primarily for fire safety and not personal protection but it serves that too. Most also require a key card for entry nowadays. Some dorms, primarily in the inner cities, actually staff the lobby with securtiy 24/7.</p>
<p>sabaray, that link isn’t working for me…</p>
<p>I’ll search the Grinnell website – I’m very interested, as Grinnell is one of my S’s top 3 colleges.</p>
<p>I just think it is naive to assume crime doesn’t exist because of a campus’ physical location (i.e., middle of a cornfield). I think that’s a good rule for any campus, not just Grinnell. In the early 80’s, I never worried about leaving books or materials in the library. In all likelihood I still wouldn’t. I’m sure loggia bikes are still unlocked and unharmed. </p>
<p>When I tried to check incident reports for Grinnell I could obtain no data whatsoever even though I found links. Re: the web address, I think I have an extra colon that is not needed. If you go to the Grinnell main page, just search for “security” and you should find the mission statement of the security office, or just eliminate the colon at the end of the address. Grinnell is a wonderful school and frankly I don’t think you should be overly concerned about safety, just prudent.</p>