Urban campus is an island of safety

Sep 1, 1999 12:00 PM, Don Garbera

Henry J. McLaughlin, director of public safety at Baruch College in New York City, runs a tight ship. His security systems and staff provide the institution's employees and students with safety that rivals the best educational facilities in the country.

McLaughlin has been with the school - a senior college of The City University of New York (CUNY) system - for 16 years. Baruch College is located in several buildings in the Gramercy Park neighborhood of Manhattan. More than 900 full- and part-time faculty members and 600 additional employees work to provide bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees to 13,000 undergraduate students and 2,600 graduate students.

Although Baruch is located in a diverse area of the city that offers many opportunities for cultural and intellectual enrichment, it is also surrounded by an urban community that has problems typical of a large metropolis. The area, patrolled by officers of New York Police Department's 13th Precinct, has the highest concentration of methadone clinics in the city. The vicinity also has the largest number of hospitals.

A Link Controls card access system is used in areas such as the bursar's office (off-limits to students and anyone not employed by the office), the faculty lounge, staff rest rooms and special "smart" classrooms, which feature podiums that control lighting, screens, sound systems and rear-projection systems.

"Because the smart classrooms are used by different departments within the different Baruch schools - School of Business, School of Public Affairs and School of Arts and Sciences - using a conventional lock-and-key system would compromise security. If there were a theft, we wouldn't be able to determine which key holder had responsibility for the room when the incident occurred. Card access enables us to have an audit trail of exactly who swiped their card through a room's Dorado magnetic card reader at what time of day," says McLaughlin.

After the new Anita and William Neuman Library building was built, and brought on-line with the Link system, the city university administration decided that the library should also be used by other colleges under the CUNY umbrella. With the help of Dave Aggleton of Aggleton Associates, New York, and Baruch's technology center, the college found a way to back into the access control system - allowing professors from other colleges to use their CUNY ID cards to gain access to the library.

CCTV is important at Baruch. The mixture of Panasonic, Sony and Burle (now Philips) cameras, 72 in all, are used internally for crowd control of throngs of students traveling between classes, in all lobby areas, stairwells, freight elevators, the computer center and certain classrooms. Cameras also monitor school building perimeters.

The security control room is considered the heart of the operation - housing the Radionics alarm center, Panasonic monitors, Panasonic and Sony time-lapse recorders and Burle multiplexers and switchers. ID cards, which are integrated with the Link system, are produced on a Cybermark Coms System. They incorporate a digital photo of the Statue of Liberty, and are issued in various colors, depending on the category of the individual. For example, non-instructional staffers receive a gray card, and instructional staffers receive a salmon-colored card. The cards are either removed from the system when a teaching program concludes or revalidated each semester.

The multipurpose cards are used not only to gain access to certain areas, but also in copy machines to pay for copies made, and as ATM debit cards. Bursar payments also are controlled through the card system. A denial of access reminds students that tuition is due.

Covert surveillance equipment includes a proprietary system and a Video Ranger system from Sperry West.

Motion sensors are the key to controlling areas such as the child care center, computer center, bursar's office, registrar's office and sensitive administrative offices.

The library building uses Von Duprin Chexit sets on all stairwell doors. When opened, an alarm sounds in the security control room, and the location of the door appears on a computer screen that exhibits a building schematic.

The library building also uses Tomsed turnstiles to control entry. Students not only must swipe their cards when entering the building, they also use their cards to enter the computer center.

Locknetics electromagnetic shear locks are used on doors within some of the buildings, as are Schlage cylindrical lever locks and Medeco cylinders.

McLaughlin's staff of 87 security officers, wearing police type uniforms, are predominantly proprietary - only 15 are contract.

Proprietary officers have peace officer status, but do not carry firearms. They receive eight weeks of training at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice prior to coming on board, which is over and above the training that is mandated by the state of New York. They also receive two-day cycle training and in-service training, as well as role-call training each day.

Officers work in three shifts - 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., 3 p.m. to 11:30 p.m., or 11 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. The shifts overlap to accommodate role-call training (a chance for officers to talk about issues that come up during day-to-day operations) and the distribution of equipment such as the Motorola HT-1000 radios.

Although there is no parking garage, the school does maintain 14 street parking spaces for administrators and visitors; they are patrolled by officers on duty at building entrances and by CCTV.

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