Kara Mercer

I think it’s a good idea for the Student Association to purchase locks for the Recreation Center lockers. Walking into the locker room at the Rec and having to bypass all but two rows of functioning lockers is a problem I face every time I go to the gym.

Having lockers with proper locks to match the amount of students who use the Rec is important.

There were nine thefts reported to have occurred in the Rec since Sept. 16, according to police reports. Three of the thefts were within the same week. Another two happened on the same day.

If students walk into the Rec and need to leave their wallets, keys and phones in a locker while they work out, they should be able to leave them with the peace of mind that their items are not vulnerable to theft. It would be inconvenient for anyone to have to carry around their valuable personal items while they are travelling from machine to machine to work out, so there should be a secure place for those things.

Students should be able to enjoy the university they spend thousands of dollars to attend and not have to be inconvenienced by simple items not working.

It’s also great the SA is letting the students’ voices be heard and is allowing them to vote on which locks to purchase. The SA is working with two different contractors, and students can test two different mechanical locks.

It is important that students get a say since the SA will be using student money to make this improvement. Changing the locks in the Rec to something students don’t like would be poor planning.

Kaylyn Zielinski

The Student Association should not spend money to replace locks in the Recreation Center.

SA receives its money from student fees that are included in tuition. According to NIU’s tuition estimator, an Illinois resident taking 15 DeKalb campus course hours for fall 2015 will have a general fee of $1,117.92. This general fee, according to NIU’s website, “supports building maintenance, campus infrastructure improvements, University Health Service, the Huskie Bus service and the Student Association and its activities, among other things.

Since SA receives its money from the student fees in tuition, it should spend that money on something to benefit all students since not all students use the Recreation Center and its locker room.

Students should not bring valuable or expensive items to the Recreation Center in the first place unless it is something they are going to use while working out. If students plan on bringing items they don’t want stolen, they should keep them by their side.

SA is having students vote on what locks they should use. If students can vote on a certain lock to spend money on, they should be able vote on different uses of SA money. The SA should create a list of different things on campus it would be able to do with its money and have students take a survey of those options.

Instead of fixing only half of the lockers — because it doesn’t have enough money to fix them all — it should put funds elsewhere or wait until there’s enough to fix them all, especially since the Rec has gone this far without these lockers. A little longer without new locks won’t hurt.