Amidst uncertainty surrounding future security improvements, College leadership looks away from cameras in the near future
For this year’s 2024 LGBTQ+ History Month celebration, members of Wabash’s gay-straight alliance, ’shOUT, lined the walking paths of the College Mall with LGBTQ+ pride flags, hoping to promote community and brotherhood.
When they awoke the following morning, they found anything but these two things. On the Mall, there were no flags in sight. ’shOUT’s efforts were later found in a campus dumpster, leaving everyone with a burning question: Who committed this crime?
The answer: No one knows.
This isn’t the first time where the question of criminal identity cannot be answered. In March of 2024, Delta Tau Delta was vandalized with homophobic slurs for the second time in two years. The summer prior, two neighboring fraternity houses — Kappa Sigma and Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI) — were broken into and vandalized. Items were stolen and spray painted, and messages were left behind. These aren’t the only incidents happening on campus either — cars have been broken into, rocks thrown at windows, personal property stolen and academic buildings trespassed.
The natural follow-up to the question of identity in each case was the question, “Will we ever have cameras on campus?”
The College has long been proud not to need cameras on campus, citing the Gentleman’s Rule. Wabash men should be gentlemen at all times, many claim, and therefore have no need to be surveilled. Others cite transgressions of the Gentleman’s Rule as the very need for cameras.
“Any criminality on campus would be easier to solve with cameras,” said Dean of Students Gregory Redding ’88. “That’s just a fact.”
For many students, the reality of having cameras on campus is one that comes with a feeling of fear and irritation at the idea of being watched more. There is a sense among students that freedom to move around campus with relatively limited oversight is crucial to Wabash’s thriving social culture.
Josh Campbell ’25, whose backpack and laptop were stolen from the Sparks Center while he ate dinner several weeks ago, sent an all-campus email expressing his anger and frustration, but maintained that campus should remain camera-less.
“The root problem isn’t that there aren’t cameras on campus,” Campbell said. “The root problem is that there are people on campus who don’t follow the Gentleman’s Rule.”
“I think we have a history of things here at Wabash, and cameras are not a part of that history,” said Phenix Carney ’25, president of Kappa Sigma, one of the houses that was vandalized over the summer break of 2023. “I don’t think it would help our campus. Our tradition is holding people accountable whenever they mess up, and I don’t think we need cameras to do that.”
In an anonymous survey conducted by The Bachelor, only 33% of the responses from individuals who identified as ‘Fraternity’ or ‘Independents’ agreed that Wabash needs security improvements. However, 67% of respondents who identified as ‘Faculty/Non-Student’ affirmed that they thought that campus needed security improvements.
The gap is further seen when looking at the differences in responses about what level, if any, of cameras should be installed on campus. The survey allowed for a sliding response, in which an answer of ‘1’ meant that the individual believed no level of cameras should be installed on campus, while an answer of ‘5’ indicated that the individual believed that every part of campus should have a camera on it.
Only 13% of the ‘Faculty/Non-Student’ respondents checked off ‘1,’ indicating that no level of cameras should be on campus. This stands in stark contrast to ‘Fraternity’ and ‘Independents,’ who had 54% and 40% of responses, respectively, saying that no level of cameras should be on campus.
The respondents who selected ‘2,’ ‘3’ or ‘4’ were prompted to elaborate on where they thought cameras should be. Among all three identities, many individuals noted that ‘all doorways should at least be monitored’ and ‘parking lots should have cameras.’ However, many responses also indicated that cameras should be limited to outdoor areas of the college, and should ‘not be inside of buildings.’
Interviews conducted with students also revealed some are not totally against tightening up certain aspects of security, as long as students’ autonomy is not hampered. Additional security measures put forward by students centered more on risks to living units rather than general campus incidents.
“I think fraternity houses should be protected over the summer with cameras inside,” said Carney. “Because at the end of the day, we don’t see much vandalism happening to independent buildings.”
However, while the desire for cameras from faculty and other non-students in the Wabash community seems to be strong, the Safety Committee — the administrative arm of the College focused on improving overall campus safety — is not considering cameras as their first priority in the context of improving campus security.
“There’s a lot of things we should have,” said President of Wabash Scott Feller. “But that doesn’t mean we are going to have them. I won’t say that we will never add cameras, but in the next couple of years there will be a higher priority than cameras — electronic door access.”
Electronic door access would mean every building on campus would be outfitted with a new lock system, making it easier for buildings to be secured and more difficult for vandals to repeat incidents of the past. Should there be an event, security could check the system to see who had entered the building that day.
“I don’t think key cards, for example, are an issue,” said FIJI President Quinn Manford ’25. “Key cards could prevent a lot of vandalism. I think if we have key cards, then what happened at FIJI two years ago doesn’t happen.”
The prioritization of electronic door access stems from two unique but connected issues — finances and culture.
“We have to think, ‘Does [having cameras] mean having one on every single exterior door?’” said Redding. “‘Do we have alarm systems on our doors — on our windows?’ That would be great [for security] but that’s millions of dollars of investment. There’s no practical way to make that happen.”
The extreme cost of cameras, especially during a period of major financial investment in many capital projects across campus, is not feasible for Wabash. The financial cost, however, isn’t the only factor making the Safety Committee leery of cameras. The cultural cost could be just as impactful — and carry heavier weight when looking at the decision about whether or not to move toward cameras.
“We rely so much on our culture of personal responsibility,” said Chief Financial Officer Kendra Cooks. “We don’t ever want to create an atmosphere of being a prison with lights and [cameras]. Not that we would ever bury our head in the sand about anything, but the priority for us is [door] access.”
With the financial and cultural constraints on cameras making them a low priority for improvements to security around campus, the Safety Committee is hoping that electronic door access could be the fiscal solution to improving security at Wabash.
“[Electronic door access] is something that Dean Redding and I have had as a priority,” said Director of Safety and Security Buck Waddell. “I’m excited to see access control come online.”
Many instances of College buildings being broken into and vandalized might have been mitigated by the presence of electronic door locks to better secure Wabash facilities. This move towards door locks also shows where the administration’s priorities are — rather than trying to police students by introducing cameras, the introduction of door locks focuses on protecting students from threats external to the College.
“[With] violations, there’s a good chance that it wasn’t even a member of our community,” said Redding. “This is something we worry about a lot in the summer when students are gone, and when everyone knows that students are gone.”
The improvements to access control by implementing electronic door access is something that, like cameras, Wabash is lagging behind in, Feller acknowledged.
“Admittedly we did not get ahead of the curve on electronic door access,” said Feller. “I think we’ve been very honest in saying that we are trying to catch up.”
With hopes of improvements beginning to take shape over the next two years, Wabash’s administration aims to be on par with neighboring institutions, while still preserving the unique culture of personal responsibility among students.