By NIC SRIDEJ

Editor-in-Chief

Piedmont College has no surveillance.  

Alright, technically, five of the resident dorms have cameras, and Campus Police calls GB home.  

But what about the rest of campus? 

Where’s the security in the academic buildings?  

It’s understandable why most of our buildings didn’t come fresh out of the box with cameras and fingerprint scanners.  

The buildings are old.  

But the equipment in these buildings are not.  

It’s not the buildings themselves that need securing.  

It’s the equipment that make our education possible that requires security.  

What about our new academic buildings?  

The Swanson Center and the extension on the Martens Center that houses the entire art department exist with no surveillance whatsoever.  

Sure, these buildings have desk workers who keep an eye out for shenanigans.  

But that’s not true surveillance.  

Unless there’s a worker posted at every door, it’s impossible for them to catch everything.

I could walk in to the art building and snag a canvas.  

I don’t particularly have a need for a canvas, but I could do it.  

The Swanson Center and the art building, come to think of it, are filled with computers.  

Even if I don’t need a computer, pawn shops and eBay aren’t known to turn products away.  

As they stand now, just about anyone could walk into our buildings virtually undetected.  

Someone vandalized the vending machine in the Swanson Center late last semester.  

As far as I know, the unsuccessful thief was never found.  That’s no one’s fault.  

It’s not like he left a trail of crumbs on his way out.  

There’s no way to know whether he was a student or someone off the street.   

But there should be a way to know.   

By no means am I unhappy or ungrateful for Campus Police.  

They do a superb job securing our campus and are rarely thanked for it.  

But they can’t cover every inch of campus at the same time.  

It’s just not possible.  Expanding on campus security would make their job easier and Piedmont safer.  

This isn’t a call to instant action.  

I know that it’s not something that can be fixed overnight.  

But I do believe better overall campus surveillance should be a priority.  

The  mere presence of cameras would serve as a solid deterrent to most fledgling thieves.  

And, should a brave thief manage to walk out of  a building with an iMac tucked in his coat, or a vandal do his worst to our snack machines, we’ll have a snapshot of the vagabonds for the local authorities.