Over Spring Break, Campus Security and Student Affairs installed two security cameras in the post office as part of the ongoing investigation into the homophobic acts that shook the campus in February. While Joint Board members had expressed a desire to be involved in any decision on camera placement, administrators say there was an urgent need to install the cameras without consulting Joint Board given the nature of the ongoing investigation.

The installation of the cameras comes two weeks after Joint Board ratified a campus security camera policy following two years of debate on the issue. Vice President of Student Affairs Jan Koszewski '08 led the committee which, along with the help of Joint Board senators and Security Officers Stephen Briscoe and Amy Coleman, drafted the school policy requiring consultation of Joint Board before the installation of cameras.

While the committee finished the drafting of the policy, which would establish a committee of six students and five administrators who would vote on installation of cameras on campus, incoming Vice President of Student Affairs Houston Dougharty and President Russell K. Osgood have to review and ratify it before it becomes official policy.

Other aspects of the as-yet-unofficial policy include mandating that Security post signs next to each camera notifying students that they are under surveillance and requiring that the tapes be viewed only after a crime may have occurred.

Interim Vice President of Student Affairs Elena Bernal '94 stressed that the installation of the cameras over break had nothing to do with avoiding student input. Instead, Bernal explained that Security and Student Affairs believed for confidential reasons pertaining to the hate crimes investigation that the cameras needed to be installed immediately, saying only, "This decision needed to be made."

Exactly what the cameras are looking for, when and if they will be removed and who monitors them is all confidential information which Student Affairs and Security cannot discuss until the investigation concludes.

The homophobic acts in February, wherein an unknown person mailed derogatory letters to 34 members of Grinnell's queer community via the campus post office, highlight for Bernal the complicated, personal and profound issues surrounding installation of cameras. "This is a tremendous opportunity for students to walk away fine-tuning a policy that is as 'real world' as it gets," said interim Vice President of Student Affairs Elena Bernal '94. "We can't just have the knee-jerk, 'Big Brother' reaction."

Though Student Affairs did not inform all of SGA or the student body of the recent installations, Koszewski said that he feels the administrators involved in security camera policy are "sympathetic to the spirit of the policy"--students having major influence over the decision to install cameras.

"The timing sucks, in that we've expressed the desire for student input over camera installation, but the policy isn't official," said Koszewski. "The expressed intention of the student body wasn't followed, but I don't know how much I can fault them given the nature and severity of the situation." And while he's nervous about potential abuse of emergency circumstances to justify installation of cameras without student input, Koszewski believes that in any circumstance, students' safety must come first. "If the policy was already on record, I would be outraged right now and I would certainly feel violated. But it's different right now, given the nature of the investigation."

"[The hate crimes] bring up that camera policy should be thought of less as a potential Big Brother and more of as the intersection between Big Brother and student security," said Bernal.

For Bernal, the key to quelling unproductive debate between students and administrators over the potentially divisive issues of whether and where cameras should be installed is creating a solid camera policy. " A cohesive policy built by students and administrators would need to address how to respond to both routine desires for more security and emergency situations such as violent or hateful crimes," said Bernal.

"It is really easy to tear policies or decisions apart but much more difficult to build them back up," said Bernal. "The hard part is to get off the soapbox and make a good policy."