SSI Guards A Mixed Bag

It's midterm season, and this week grades are coming back. For the new Security Systems Incorporated (SSI) guards who are watching over the Houses, the news is mixed at best. As reported last week, anecdotal evidence suggests the guards could use a little more time to understand the workings of Harvard and the lives of its students--time, with the nature of SSI workers, they many not have before taking another job. Our first concern is safety, and so far SSI guards are doing the job; however, we worry if the mixed bag students have seen from their guards may cost us down the line.

Anecdotes are just anecdotes, but building--or destroying--trust is often based on those anecdotes. Whether a guard recognizes you or knows your name is just as ephemeral and fleeting as catching a guard asking directions or changing clothes in the Claverly Hall foyer, as one guard happened to be doing last week. Guards have not always responded quickly to calls on their radios and have at times responded to calls meant for others. Though some sort of adjustment is predictable, the high turnover of SSI employees makes us wonder if guards will be at Harvard long enough to learn their way around.

A number of the SSI guards are former Harvard guards who accepted a buyout and switched to SSI, and some of the SSI guards, like Cort Ellis in Quincy House, have made an effort to learn students' names and understand the maze of entryways, floor numbers and other quirks of Harvard Houses. However, since SSI is an outsourcer trying to provide services at the lowest price, these cases are the exception rather than the rule.

When Harvard made the decision to outsource security, it took a risk. An outside organization would handle hiring and firing guards, providing their pay and benefits schedules and generally remove responsibility for the quality of individual guards from Harvard's plate. In exchange, Harvard would face mostly unfamiliar guards who do not know campus or the students and employees who may change often. Harvard must acknowledge the risks in this experiment; as these early reports have shown, the gamble may not be going so well.

Harvard University Chief Francis D. "Bud" Riley emphasized last week, "I'm always concerned about security. That's my job." Maybe that job involves rethinking the decision to outsource--or at least making sure SSI guards are helping to keep Harvard safe.

DISSENT:

Harvard's Job Is Education

Less than a month ago, the staff suggested that Harvard's primary business ought to be education. We stand by that position and believe that Harvard is wise to stay out of the entirely different field of organizing a security force. A few isolated anecdotes about confusion during the SSI guards' first weeks on the job are not enough to discredit the outsourcing process.

--Rachel P. Kovner '01,

Jordana R. Lewis '02,

Stephen E. Sachs '02