New Campus Woman Residents Concerned With Dorm Privacy

BY ENGY ADHAM

The Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) Department Director has said that they are unable to comply with dorm resident requests to have female representatives respond to emergency situations because of budget deficits.

Last semester, workers from the EHS department took pictures of girls inside the women’s dormitory during a fire drill, claiming they were for documentation purposes.

Female residents saw this as a breach of privacy; the girls were in their nightwear while some veiled girls left their rooms without their headscarves.

The residents complained regarding the violations of the EHS security officers and requested female representatives be used in future drills.

The director of the EHS department Rham Abdel Hamid, asked the Office of Residential Life (ResLife) to remove the pictures taken during the fire drill, as there was no mention of taking pictures in the planning meeting.

ResLife forwarded the residents’ request to the administration to have female security for future drills and apologized for the fire drill incident saying that they will keep them posted of future developments.

This semester, ResLife sent updates informing the dorm residents of the new emergency procedures adopted in coordination with the EHS department. Abdel Hamid told The Caravan that for security reasons, there is no way to stop the fire drill practices; however, they developed new ways to avoid last semester’s violations from reoccurring.

“Only in the case of a real fire, dorm residents should expect EHS personnel knocking on their doors, but in the case of a fire drill, only the RAs are the ones responsible for doing the evacuation,” Abdel Hamid said.

Although ResLife further developed the emergency procedures to suit the residents’ demands, some female dorm residents objected to having the violators play the same role during a real emergency.

“There are some developments in the new emergency procedures such as training the RAs and having them doing the fire drill, but we still want female security officers in case of a real fire,” said Eman Salah, a senior construction engineering student and a dorm resident.

“While AUC is having a deficit, it’s very difficult to ask for hiring EHS female personnel,” said Fatema Abou Youssef, Associate Dean for Residential Life.

Abdel Hamid added that the nature of the EHS individuals’ work might not be suitable for females, as the safety workers have three shifts and they work around the clock. She also said that they have tried different solutions to recruite EHS female personnel, including internal transfers from the housekeeping personnel.

“Although it is an option that doesn’t collide with the deficit situation at AUC, the newly hired workers would need a lot of trainings to be able to perform their job properly,” she said.

Abdel Hamid added that the RAs have received training on the evacuation procedures, which included knowledge of the building layout.

“They have received a practical and theoretical firefighting training so that they can act as warding and emergency team in case of a real emergency,” Abdel Hamid said.