The ID scanner at the front desk in Walker Fieldhouse is misunderstood by many.  Its purpose is to keep the building secure and measure the amount of traffic by accounting for who is in the building at what time.  It became completely operational this past summer, which makes it new to the Hamline University population.

Jason Verdugo, athletics director, says that the scanner’s purpose is to “continue to try to do a good job securing the building and making sure that people that aren’t supposed to be in the building get in.  That was a little bit of the intention.”

Students used to show their ID to the student worker or sign in at the front desk.

“There’s a lot of entry points into the building, so for us, obviously those are always risks… So when the design of the building first happened, I don’t know that those things were strongly considered.  For us, we wanted to try to attempt to make the building as secure as possible,” said Verdugo.

To prevent all the entry point doors from being accessible, the doors directly on Hewitt Avenue remain locked.  This includes the doors connected to Hutton and the glass doors which lead to the hallway of the swimming pool.  Except of course if there is a game or meet.

By locking the main doors on Hewitt Avenue, it forces the traffic of the building to enter through the Bush Center or Walker Fieldhouse doors.

Another new safety precaution that was implemented this year was arranging a Safety and Security officer to monitor the front desk of Walker Fieldhouse.  The officer comes at 5:00 p.m. every night, Monday through Friday to provide protection after dark.

“It’s helped, it has slowed down traffic, decreased thefts, and reduced the number of unauthorized people who shouldn’t be in the building,” Verdugo said.

An additional misunderstanding of the scanner is that it specifically monitors the weight room.  This is false since the ID scanner is meant to be utilized by everyone who enters Walker Fieldhouse.

Since there are so many confusions regarding the scanner, “It’s not a perfect process, but it has improved more than we had hoped,” said Verdugo.

The front desk has placed a sign in the lobby to enforce the ID scanner, because of the extreme adjustment from past procedures.

“It would be helpful if everyone scanned their IDs,” Verdugo stated.

Beth Rittler-Bjork, associate athletics director, also conveyed information on the topic.

“At the beginning of course, people weren’t thrilled about having to do it all the time but I think people now know or I hope they know that it’s really kind of a security check for us.  Really it’s a good thing for everybody once they realize what the reasoning is.”

The ID scanner is used for multiple security reasons, not only to keep an eye on who comes in the building, but in the unfortunate event of an accident.

“On the chance that there is an accident or somebody needs help, we’ll know who it is, if they scanned their ID,” Rittler-Bjork said.

Furthermore, each ID scan records the time which helps evaluate what time of day people are using the facility.  This ultimately provides feedback in case Walker Fieldhouse needs to alter their building hours.

“Our hope and our plan is that we have a facility available to all of our students, athletes and Hamline community,” said Rittler-Bjork.

Rittler-Bjork also said that we are “Trying to do our best to know who’s in the facility and we’re not going to catch everyone but we try to catch absolutely as many as we can,” but at the same time “We want to keep things user-friendly for everybody.”

Student-athlete, Rex Gould, explained his interpretation of the ID scanner.  “Initially I thought it was for coach’s to monitor which athletes are going up to the weight room, late for practice or being dishonest.”

Times have changed to provide more security for Walker Fieldhouse at Hamline University.