With the 2026-27 school year fully in swing, students across campus were greeted with a change regarding their student ID card. Beginning this school year, to get into almost all buildings on campus, students and faculty will be required to scan their ID cards to gain access inside. This, however, poses a question for all on campus, was this change a positive one? In my opinion… it was in fact the right choice.
Originally, I was skeptical that this type of change would be more of an annoyance throughout the school year rather than something that is meant as a safety precaution. All of the thoughts immediately flooded my head about all the situations that I could find myself in which not having my ID card on me would be an issue. Perhaps, I lost it and wouldn’t be able to get into any academic buildings? Like any student, this is where my mind first went, however as my opinion began to change, Police Chief Joe Tiraboschi helped outline the necessity of these changes.
“We’ve invested a lot into the card readers, but when Brown happened (a campus shooting in December of 2025), we really took a really serious step back and looked at all our current policies and reassessed some things and saw there was a need to improve,” Tiraboschi said. “So we went around and looked at local colleges and other colleges similar size to us and in similar regions, and similar demographics of like where the college sits, and we noticed that a lot of colleges were going to card access throughout the entire school and throughout the entire campus, so we made that same move of looking at the policy, then also seeing how it could be effective and what buildings would still be unlocked.”
His reference the mass shooting truly made me reflect on what I would do presented with that situation. This ultimately helped me come to the conclusion that our safety on campus can sometimes depend on a simple card reader outside the door. Not to get into the doom and gloom of the worst possible scenarios, but these types of things truly present differing perspectives into how we view these changes made to our campus.
Aside from the safety worries, I also questioned Chief Tiraboschi as to how this will affect students who had lost their ID’s, as I had heard from other students that this was a worry of theirs too.
“It’s now a 24-hour operation when it comes to your ID, and getting to certain places, and you need to be able to get to your residence hall so you get plenty of sleep. You need to be able to get to the Learning Commons, and you’d be able to get to your classes,” Tiraboschi said. “Having it more readily available, and having us have ownership of it. We’re here 365, seven days a week. We’re always here to help you, so it’s one of those things where it makes more sense to make these adjustments now.”
As the year goes on and everyone becomes more accustomed to these changes, I believe that in the long term we will grow to appreciate feeling more secure throughout the campus. Further projects, one being more advanced cameras, will continue to be evaluated by both faculty and student leadership teams, but for now, Springfield’s campus will continue to process all that has recently changed on Alden Street.