Quinnipiac University Balances Security and Freedom with PERSONA Locksets

Personal freedom and a safe learning environment are hallmarks of the college life experience. Maintaining this culture is a challenge for school administrators, who are responsible for creating a safe atmosphere that fosters a sense of freedom, yet encourages students to act responsibly. The ideal campus for students and administrators is one that offers students easy access to school facilities while maintaining a degree of accountability. Creating this delicate balance of security and freedom requires a locking solution that can adapt to any situation. Quinnipiac University found it with PERSONA.

 
Located in Hamden, CT, Quinnipiac houses approximately 3,000 of its nearly 8,000 students in campus residence halls. The University has undergone a series of expansion projects in recent years to accomodate its burgeoning student population and was in need of a locking system that could handle the school's ever-changing needs. Additionally, Quinnipiac has experienced steady growth in recent years which necessitated expansion beyond its main campus. This expansion comes with the need to provide additional security for university personnel, as well as the nearly 8,000 students that live in campus residence halls

Securing buildings located in remote off-campus locations can be a challenge for a school’s facilities department. Quinnipiac overcame this by installing WiFi-enabled locksets from Sargent Manufacturing, an ASSA ABLOY Group brand. This technology allows the locks to be networked into a centralized campus control system without having to run wiring to each door.  The Wi-Fi capabilities will allow Quinnipiac to have greater flexibility in the academic areas on campus.  It will allow the school to utilize their card technology for access outside the traditional residence hall areas of check-in, holiday periods, and check-out.

“Even though we expanded outside the main campus, we wanted to provide the same level of doorway security that the main campus enjoys,” said Keith Woodward, director of facilities at Quinnipiac.

The school put together a team of residential, security, vending, IT and facilities personnel to investigate locksets that would fill the needs of all university departments. Specifically, the locksets needed to operate with the existing campus one card system that serves not only as a student ID, but is also used for on-campus and off-campus transactions including dining, vending machines, laundry and equipment checkout. Another goal was to improve security, provide accountability, and eliminate the costs associated with metal key systems.

Quinnipiac has a more than 30-year relationship with Sargent and ASSA ABLOY. All residence halls and academic buildings on the main campus are secured with Sargent Passport 1000 PG offline locks that operate with Quinnipiac’s Q-Card student ID program. The locking system’s Persona Campus software enables the university to set access privileges on all campus buildings and track lock usage with an audit trail feature

 

Products

• Locksets- SARGENT, PERSONA