Seeing your CUID swipe green at Earl gate has never felt so good.

For Barnumbia students, back-to-school usually means reuniting with friends, faculty, and the city we all so lovingly call home after a long summer away. However, this year, back-to-school also inherently means a reunion of a different kind: reuniting with private security on campus. We all know them, but we don’t all love them. From locking up entire buildings with no clue as to why to gossiping on campus, they’re now a crucial part of our day-to-day life whether we like it or not. So, Bwog has taken some time to collect a few funny, frustrating, and otherwise entertaining interactions that we’ve had with these new fixtures of campus life over the past few weeks.

For example, one Bwogger reported having to “stand outside for 2 hours for an event so that I could vouch for ~20 non-CUID holders as they arrived (even though I knew none of them and therefore had no idea whether or not they were actually supposed to be at said event)”. Sometimes you have to take one for the team to boost attendance to on-campus events. She was the real hero here.

Another says, “While I was locked out of Earl gate because my Barnard ID wasn’t allowing me access, I watched a girl try to sign in a non-CUID guy who came from Michigan for an on-campus audition. After three different people came out to the gate to assure the security guards that he was permitted to enter and was not, in fact, trying to cause trouble, the guards decided that they wouldn’t let him in anyway. He had to go home.” Imagine flying in from Michigan and being denied entry. I wonder if his airline reimbursed him for that.

On a more humorous note, I once waited in a 10 minute line to get through the main Columbia gates at 116th and Broadway at 8:00 am and in an effort to make small talk with the guards, asked “do you guys do TSA precheck?” He looked me dead in the face and said “no.” Sorry for trying to be lighthearted—apparently I did not read the room.

And finally, in true Columbia fashion, when Bwoggers ask security guards why the buildings they’re guarding are locked and completely closed to the public, their answer is almost always that they “don’t know.” I guess the admin doesn’t tell them anything either! 

So, maybe we have more in common than we realize. Yes, their existence makes our lives as students harder and almost always extends our commutes to class at least an extra seven minutes, but perhaps they’re clueless too. Dare I say we should form an alliance to overcome the common enemy? Maybe that’s too far—but one thing I know for sure is that they’re here to stay. Welcome to Columbia, private security. Go lions!

Alma via Bwarchives