It began with one. Overlooking the clock tower during Occupy SLU, a live-stream camera linked to SLU’s website provided a live-view of the protests last month.
Then, there were more. Five cameras dot SLU’s campus, showing live feeds to anyone who cares to watch. These cameras, overlooking the clock tower, the Quad and Griesedieck Hall, the Busch Student Center, the Billiken’s sport complex, and the medical school campus, were installed Oct. 14, as mentioned by President Pestello in an email to the SLU community.
The cameras create unique questions and concerns regarding privacy, parental input and even budgets.
Our Editorial Board unanimously agreed that the installations of these cameras were directly caused by the protests, and fearful, less savory responses from parents and alumni demanding to know what was happening on campus. We speculated that the camera installation was an attempt to support SLU’s narrative of the protests occurring on campus. Better than an email from the president of the University, the camera allowed people to see that the protests were neither violent, nor engulfing the University. Sometimes, it takes seeing in order to believe.
However, several Editors expressed concern about the cameras’ continued presence on campus. For one Editor, treating the protests as a spectacle felt “Orwellian”. We’re all aware that the Department of Public Safety (DPS) has a myriad of cameras that they track, but it’s another issue to have our campus available to be viewed by anyone. A few Editors felt uneasy at the rapid proliferation of the cameras, and voiced concern that SLU will continue to add cameras. Some Editors offered the idea of limiting the number of cameras to the current total and only making these feeds available to SLU community members with a SLU ID username.
In addition to concerns that SLU is using public surveillance too eagerly, there are also concerns regarding the money used to install and maintain these cameras. The Editors familiar with bandwidth speeds remarked that five cameras constantly live-streaming use precious resources from a student body already frustrated by slow Wi-Fi . While the cameras proved useful for some during the week of the protests, and may prove useful again during the potential protests over the non-indictment of Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, for the most part, these cameras seem altogether wasteful. Our campus is uninteresting 99 percent of time; other than students enjoying the weekend too much, or the infrequent protest, this campus would be extremely boring to watch. One of our Editors noted, “It’s a novelty, but it’s not a cool novelty.”
Despite all of the negative attributions we as an editorial board have placed on the cameras thus far, a few of us have managed to find positives to the online streaming. One Editor used his computer, instead of walking the 10 feet to a window, to see if it was raining outside. Another Editor posed the idea of doing a flash mob in front of the camera in an effort to show that the cameras could be used in recruiting more Billikens.
Other than the vague concern of additional proliferation of cameras on this campus, the cameras don’t hinder us in any way. If people want to watch our boring campus, let them. Hopefully a flash mob (or another protest) livens this place up for viewers.
