Changes to late night ID policy

Students working into the wee hours to prepare for that big project or impossible midterm will now have to do so with their PennCards displayed right alongside their textbooks and study guides. New rules, announced in a memo to all students, faculty and staff by Vice President for Public Safety Thomas Seamon, broaden a policy enacted a year ago that called for students and staff to display their PennCards while working at night in eight specific University buildings. Effective this week, people affiliated with the University will have to display their cards while inside all campus buildings between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. According to the memo, this first week under the new policy will be considered an "informational period," with full enforcement beginning on February 1. And while the new policy will affect students and staff members in a much wider range of campus surroundings, several notable allowances will still be made. "There will be some obvious exceptions, such as students and faculty residents in residential buildings and those actively participating in activities in athletic buildings," Seamon wrote in the memo. Broadening the policy, officials say, was the initial intent of the security staff when the rules were first introduced. According to Penn Director of Security Services Stratis Skoufalos, this second step has been in discussion since the initial policy went into effect last year. "We felt that it made good security sense -- good safety sense -- to have folks display their cards at all times," he said. The initial late-night PennCard policy was put into place in last January, two months after a late-night knife attack on a female undergraduate student in the basement of Steinberg-Dietrich Hall. At first, the requirements affected only the Blauhaus, Meyerson Hall, Steinberg-Dietrich Hall, the School of Veterinary Medicine, the McNeil Building, the Moore Building, the Towne Building and Logan Hall. Skoufalos added that the extension of the PennCard policy is not indicative of problems with the previous rules. "[The previous policy was] absolutely effective -- by our reports and by reports of citizens using these buildings," he said. "People just felt safer once the new policy came into effect." The initial reactions of student leaders have been positive. "From my experience, I think that the policy has done more than expected," Undergraduate Assembly Secretary and College senior Megan Davidson said. "It's made our buildings safer, and it's increased relationships between the [Division of Public Safety] and the students and faculty.