Picture this: it is 2:30 a.m. on a Saturday night in Muncie. The weather is behaving like a bipolar meteorologist and you are stuck in a line that resembles I-465 in the midst of summer road construction.
Are you waiting to get into a party? Is your blood bubbling with anticipation? No, you resemble some kind of zombied-out late-night movie monster. Sleep is what you crave and this traffic jam you've gotten yourself bound up in is not only annoying, but also unnecessary.
There's a crowd of 20-some-odd people huddled around what you assume is the check-in card swipe. You can't quite make out the attendant who is hidden by the swarm of people. Most of the swarm is populated by inbred people who are trying their hardest to fill out the paperwork that the housing Gestapo requires of all its visitors.
Meanwhile, you and the fifteen people who stand behind you are just trying to get home. Unfortunately this roadblock has you stuck in dorm line limbo. You have one of two choices, you can either stay as you are for the next twenty minutes and slowly creep toward the card swipe, or you can risk ticking off a group of potentially volatile visitors by plowing through them like an enraged rhino. As you see it, your options aren't all that great.
Line congestion is one of the worst problems facing Ball State students and employees. Whether it is in the parking lots, eating areas or check-in spots our campus is plagued by ineffective trafficking. Many of these issues would require costly construction to fix them for good, but one area that can easily be changed for the better is our nightly check-in system.
Nothing's more annoying than being stuck in bottleneck when you're just trying to get into your dorm. It's great that housing has decided that security is a must when it comes to the safety of Ball State's residents.
However, the system still has some faults, especially when it comes to weekend traffic. It seems silly to have one little table to cover all of the people that have to use the same facility. One thing that really slows down the process is the paperwork that visitors are required to fill out. Now, one option student hosts have is to get their guests preapproved by their hall directors, but many people are unaware of this possibility or they go through with all the red tape and still end up misplacing the paperwork.
Why not have two tables on the weekends? One could be for checking in visitors and the other for the residents. If two tables prove to be a problem, since it might require hiring another attendant, they could always just create a two-line system.
This might not be as much of an issue in the smaller dorms like Botsford/Swinford, but for places like LaFollette that cater to around 4,000 students, the current system just isn't cutting it.
It might only be necessary during the busiest hours (usually midnight to 4 a.m.). Separating the weekend night crowds would not only alleviate much of the problem, but it would also create a more constructive residental environment.
Write to Jessie at jerenslow@bsu.edu
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