Emma Bellantoni, Campus Carrier staff writer

Berry has worked on upgrading its physical electronic access control since 2022. This upgrade came with the replacement of all the hardware on campus, as well as a new software product to manage it administratively. The replacement of the gate hardware in early May has led to issues with the functionality of students’ decals. 

Chief of Police Ryan Chesley said the recent issues are a testament to how well things had been working. He believes that issues are expected with the major changes.  

“The only way we’re going to really work through [issues] is if people work with us and let us know what problems they’re having,” Chesley said. “Just kind of communicating with us about what they’re actually dealing with it just helps us put information back into the process.” 

Chesley advises parking stickers to be placed on the top of the windshield, rather than the previous position of the bottom. 

“It’s just one of those things that’s kind of frustrating because everybody’s use case is just a little bit different,” Chesley said. “Some folks can sit there and [go] back and forth, get the gate and it works. It’s finding the sweet spot versus what it was six months ago.” 

Junior Mallory Johnson found her decal did not let her enter campus in August. With a lack of communication, Johnson was confused as to why the gate would not open for her.  

“I had to do the whole awkward U-turn,” Johnson said. “They asked me, ‘Is yours not working?’ and I told them that didn’t work and they’re like, ‘Okay, just email this.’” 

Johnson was given a QR code to a form to fill out. In Johnson’s case, it took three weeks to get back to her before she received a new decal.  

“They said I originally was going to have to possibly buy a new one if they couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working,” Johnson said. “But then, I eventually got an email that was like, ‘I’m so sorry, we don’t know why your decal’s not working. We’ll just reimburse you, just kind of pick it up.’” 

To combat these technical difficulties and help students navigate the gate process, Berry temporarily enabled ID cards to open the gate.

“The first major problem is that we had students with decal issues that really weren’t incentivized to resolve them because they had a secondary way into the campus,” Chesley said. “That was a little bit problematic, because then we had students that still had decal issues, they just weren’t as [pressed] to resolve them, because they could get in with their ID card.” 

As a result, some students bypassed the vehicle registration process altogether.  

“[Students] had vehicles on campus, they were parking on campus, they’re living on campus, but we have no record of that vehicle as part of our community because they bypass the registration process,” Chesley said. “They don’t need the decal activation that comes with the registration process because [they’re] using an ID card.” 

The main concern was tailgating issues. Students would walk and open the gate to let others in, including those who are not affiliated with Berry. 

“We observed that quite a bit on our camera system, where we would have students pull up behind somebody who either had a decal problem, didn’t have any decal, or any affiliation at all, and then let that person on the campus,” Chesley said. “They’re untrackable after, and that was a problem for us.” 

After misuse of this privilege, the ability to scan IDs was cut off. Junior Nick Springer believes this approach is not very helpful, but understands the safety concern.  

“That is not very advantageous for people who have issues with the scanner because that’s the one workaround is you can just scan [your ID],” Springer said. “I can see where that can compromise campus safety, so I understand that.” 

Chief Chesley said there are considerably fewer issues with the decals now.

“I would just encourage people, if they have a problem, to let us know, so that we can sort of diagnose their individual situation and figure out what’s going on,” Chesley said. “Every time we figure out something that is or isn’t contributing, it just helps us sort of narrow it down and smooth it out.”