Cards replace keys at Martel

By Cindy Dinh     8/21/08 7:00pm

Rice entered the 21st century this summer with security doors and locks boasting a new magnetic card swipe to gain entry into doorways. Though using a student identification card instead of a hard key to enter doors is not a new concept, Martel College is the first to test out a new system that allows Housing and Dining to activate and deactivate room access via a wireless network instead of manual configuration. "The Basis G system by Stanley Bess is a brand new system and allows us to wirelessly configure rooms from our office instead of sending someone out there every time a student loses his key," Housing Operations Manager Mark Chaszar said.

In the past, students at Baker, Hanszen, Wiess, Jones and Brown Colleges who have used their student ID for room access would have to wait for employees from H&D to reconfigure a new lock from a personal digital assistant.

The main front doors and suite doors at Martel are now outfitted with the wireless key swipes.

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"The issue at Martel has been over the years, the outer door has a lock and the inner bedrooms have a key lock, so you have two sets of keys," H&D Senior Director Frank Rodriguez said.

Not only will this new system be less confusing than the mixed key-and-card system of years past, it will also save students and the university money in the long run.

"If a student loses a key they are charged $100 to recode 2 locks. If a student loses their ID card, it only costs 10 dollars to replace it," Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez said students can save money and time with the new access card. New cards can be reconfigured as soon as H&D is notified. There is also an increased security with the new system.

"Before, with the hard key, you could never know who turned it and went in," Rodriguez said. "The student ID card can track the transactions: who's been in the room and what time they went in."

H&D is testing out the system at Martel and is looking into expanding it to other buildings in the future.

"Depending on how new construction comes online and their specifications, we can analyze that and see if card readers are something we continue to expand there," Rodriguez said.

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