There have been a number of news articles about the master keys lately, but so far very little real action on the part of the administration to improve the situation or to warn staff and faculty of the ongoing vulnerability of locked spaces to burglary, or much worse.
Â
Â
The article and editorial in the Echo are, as usual, very good. The first is “Master Keys Lost,” by Amanda Hamon, Editor in Chief:
http://www.easternecho.com/cgi-bin/story.cgi?11809
Â
Â
The second, the editorial, is “EMU Should Prioritize Safety“:
http://www.easternecho.com/cgi-bin/story.cgi?31749
Â
Â
The Detroit Free Press also has an article, “At EMU, Missing Keys are Problem” by Kristen Jordan Shamus:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070524/NEWS06/705240389
Â
Â
This article also has a copy of the grievance now being filed by the AAUP against Janice Stroh on behalf of professors:
http://www.freep.com/assets/static/pdf/2007/05/keys0524.pdf
Â
Â
Some more discussion of this issue has been added to the earlier emutalk post, “Update on Master Keys and Office Larcenies“:
Â
Â
I hear that a vote of no confidence has been called on the dean and that the administration threatens to disband the Security Advisory Committee, the only such committee with faculty, staff, and student representation.Â
Â
Â
It is not reassuring how very little seriously the administration takes security just when it has become of so much importance to everyone else due to the severe, recurring security lapses at our university like the stolen master keys.
Three thoughts:
* I am actually one of the folks who signed the grievance. My main reason being apart of this is very simple: I had a computer stolen from my office, and I think it’s reasonable to assume that it has something to do with these missing keys. But I also look at it like this: if this grievance (and other issues on campus) prompts the powers that be to rekey and/or take thefts like the one I experienced more seriously, then that will be good.
* This Detroit Freep article also says this:
“However, the missing master keys could not have been used to get inside Dickinson’s Hill Hall dorm room, where her body was found Dec. 15. Mullens said Hill was rekeyed in July 2006, about five months before Dickinson’s body was found.
“EMU could not say how many thefts have occurred from locked campus offices since the keys went missing. However, the grievance says faculty reported at least 27 incidents of theft since August 2005. Of them, 15 were from locked faculty offices.”
I think this is important because I don’t think it’s a good idea to conflate the loss of these keys and the office break-ins (which I do think are connected, personally) with the Dickinson murder (which I don’t think is connected to this lost of keys at all).
* Every person I’ve talked to on campus in the last couple weeks who has any kind of connection with the suits suggests to me that this rekeying thing is inevitable. Would have been nice had it been a year ago though.
Steve,
Wise comments, yours, as usual.
A couple repiies? Yes, the rekeying is inevitable. The suits may or may not yet know it, but on no campus in America with lost keys but ours would administrators think the risks are worth it. And they made that choice in their typical isolation from the real campus, the real students and faculty….
But the FREE PRESS article does not cite any evidence beyond management claims for the assertion that Laura Dickinson’s killer could not have had master keys. So far, management has refused to produce documents showing what dates the Hill Hall locks were changed, and by whom. Yet Chris Longerbeam of physical plant promised, at the April meeting of the Security Advisory Committee (of which I am a member), to provide such documentation right away. None has been forthcoming, and he declined to produce it at the May meeting of the committee a week ago. Instead of producing what he’d agreed to produce, he said his superior had been given the work completion documents, and that VP Stroh had them too.
Why not provide this information which faculty and students have asked for? IF management has PROOF that hill hall locks were changed, then produce it: to fail to do so is to add credence to the rumor that the killer of Laura Dickinson had been using a stolen master key to rob dorm rooms. I have heard this rumor from students for months, and sought information on it, and yet no administrator has replied and provided evidence to refute it.
Why? Two theories: either they are hiding something that is really damning, or they are just plain incompetent. I have wanted to try to put this rumor to rest, but it just grows stronger with continued administration assertions, absent evidence, that the locks were changed.
I have never heard of a grievance, its actual text, being made public before. Curious, that choice, but I am not sure whose choice that was.
An article in the Ann Arbor News:
http://www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/base/news-22/1180017817211950.xml&coll=2
EMU professors demand new locks for offices
Union links missing master keys to recent rash of office thefts
Thursday, May 24, 2007
BY GEOFF LARCOM
News Staff Reporter
A set of master keys that opens doors across the Eastern Michigan University campus was lost in August 2005, and faculty members are concerned that many of the locks have not been rekeyed.
Professors say that the missing keys could be linked to a recent series of laptop computer thefts from faculty offices.
A grievance filed with the university this week by the EMU chapter of the American Association of University Professors, the professors’ union, says that EMU has violated its contract with the professors to provide a safe campus environment, said Howard Bunsis, president of the faculty union.
Boy, aren’t you proud of yourselves? More negative publicity for EMU in the papers. Your union filed a grievance (which is the right thing to do), but then never even gave anyone a chance to respond before taking it outside EMU into the court of public opinion. Granted the keys have been missing two years and this should have been addressed already, but you didn’t even give Stroh a chance (less then 10 days since her email went out). It just seems to me that you should have at least waited until your grievance was addressed before going to the media with this. Most contracts have timelines that are very strict about the grievance process so it’s not like the administration can sit on the grievance for as long as they want. Like I said, the grievance idea was great, but giving it to the media was a bad move in my opinion. At least give people a chance to do the right thing. I think Stroh’s email was a step in the right direction. I also think she was willing to work on it and the grievance would have given her a little shove to keep moving forward on the issue. It was nice of the media to throw in a jab about the Dickenson case while they were at it.
As someone who signed that grievance, I think it’s worth recalling the time line, Wayne. I would have called for a grievance back in September 2006 (since my office was broken into in August 2006), but the union and the administration were a little distracted by this pesky strike thing. As we all know, that went on for a long long time.
The lost master keys was a long standing rumor on campus, and I think it came up in the media as early as March. I think the effort to connect the lost keys with the Dickinson murder is a specious argument: it might have some ring of truth to it, but I don’t think the current evidence supports it. Regardless, in terms of the time line, the master key thing has been out there in the media for quite a while now, certainly long before the grievance was finally filed.
And in my recollection, this is not the first grievance that has been in the media prior to it being settled. Actually, most grievances that don’t involve individuals/personnel issues seem to end up in the media before they’re settled.
I think the most telling phrase in your post here Wayne is the the two years thing. TWO YEARS this has been going on! So, in terms of the bad PR for EMU, who is really responsible here? Is it the folks reporting on this, the “messenger?” Or is it the administrative forces who have spent the last two years crossing their fingers and wishing this problem away?
I’ve heard similar “blame the messenger” complaints about bad PR about other things at EMU in the last year. Is it “the messenger’s” fault that the administration got up and walked away from negotiations in September, triggering a year-long labor crisis that will linger at EMU for years? Is it “the messenger’s” fault that cash-strapped EMU decided to use over $100,000 to buy football tickets to make up for the lack of attendance at its games? Is it “the messenger’s” fault that forces in the administration out-and-out lied about a murder investigation?
So, I would suggest that the best thing that the “powers that be” can do to end the bad publicity at EMU is to stop doing unbelievably stupid things that inevitably lead to bad publicity.
Steve, that’s an awfully simple solution that would require little to no money.
So you KNOW that it won’t be considered–unless we have a “10-day” investigation by an “independent” entity.
Below is the latest safety advisory. Notice it states the offices were UNSECURED, not secured as the victims claimed they were. So much for the lost master keys theory.
Abby
From the EMU Department of Public Safety:
EMU Public Safety would like to advise the university community that a
29-year-old Ypsilanti Township resident was arrested June 19 for the
thefts of laptop computers and purses in EMU Buildings. The
University’s digital video surveillance system was instrumental in
identifying and apprehending this suspect.
During the interview process, the suspect admitted to stealing at least
20 lap top computers and 15-20 purses within the last year. The suspect
stated that he would observe people leave their offices UNSECURED; enter
the office and then steal laptop computers and/or purses. He stated
that normally purses are left under the desk UNSECURED.
DPS would also like to inform the campus community that three subjects
were arrested June 9 within minutes of an unarmed robbery that night.
The victim, an EMU student, was walking alone on campus in the late
evening when he was assaulted.
DPS would like remind the campus community to secure your personal
items as well as your offices when they are unattended, even if it is
just for a short period of time. Also, take time to be aware of your
surroundings while walking on campus during the evening hours and to report
suspicious activity and persons to DPS at 487-1222. SEEUS is
available from 5-11 p.m., Monday – Friday. For more information, call
487-3387.