USC rolls out the unwelcome mat (Entry to campus is restricted after 9 p.m.)

LA Times ^ | 01/15/2013 | Angel Jennings and Rosanna Xia

[Kid Shelleen]

--snip-- This week marks the beginning of heightened security measures at USC that restrict late-night guests and require identification checks for all visitors between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. Other measures, including the use of fingerprinting scanners at dorms and license plate recognition cameras, are also being introduced this semester.

The changes come after two violent incidents last year rocked USC and prompted new calls for tighter security:

[Behind the Blue Wall]

Sort of silly. All of the frat houses and apartments and businesses that cater to USC students are OFF-campus, so they won’t really make things much safer for students by closing the campus at night.

[Fiji Hill]

The changes come after two violent incidents last year rocked USC and prompted new calls for tighter security: The Halloween shooting on campus that left four people wounded, and the two graduate students from China who were killed in a botched robbery less than a mile from campus.

How would locking up the campus have prevented a crime that occurred nearly a mile away?

[James C. Bennett]

Until now, people roamed freely off and on USC, with many of them taking the safe, well-lit shortcut through campus. But with the new initiatives, USC closes most of its entrances after 9 p.m., blocking all but eight entryways with iron fences and temporary gates. USC senior Reggie Mccollumm did a double take Monday night when he walked past the red metal gates."It looks like a prison," he said, laughing. "This is a joke. I'm sorry, this is awful. Just look at it." Some community members say the new security policy may also complicate an already strained relationship with its University Park neighbors. The increasing number of students living off campus have driven up rents in the neighborhoods, and community leaders say a $1.2-billion expansion project at University Village threatens to gentrify the area and push out the poor. The limited late-night access fuels the divide, said USC alumnus Hector Sanchez, 32. "It's a place where people should be able to access," Sanchez said. "Slowly but surely, USC is creating this divide of us versus them." As a youngster, Sanchez would bypass the liquor stores and gang violence on his way to watch the USC football team practice. He fantasized about one day joining them on the field. "It makes you dream that you can come here," he said. "Now it seems like they are trying to do the opposite by closing its doors and making it an unreachable place."

LOL, so much touchy-feely.

[Conan the Librarian]

Why is the LA times writing about the University of South Carolina.

This action is rather liberal for a university in Columbia, SC, but, things do change.

[SoCal Pubbie]

I know it always pains the Gamecocks, but the school was South Carolina College, not USC, before the Trojans came along. The school did not become University of South Carolina until AFTER the REAL USC was founded in Los Angeles.

[Dilbert San Diego]

Well, unfortunately, USC is in a bad neighborhood. It’s not PC to talk about those things, but USC is surrounded by slums.

[Dilbert San Diego]

Well, unfortunately, USC is in a bad neighborhood. It’s not PC to talk about those things, but USC is surrounded by slums.

[hanamizu]

Yes, USC is a private, elite school surrounded by a slum and it’s been that way for a long time. I attended a film class there one summer in ‘69 and the neighborhood was scary then—my apartment was broken into and cleaned out. It can’t have gotten better in the nearly half century since. Surprised it took them this long.