ZOYA AZHAR ‘20
ASSISTANT OPINIONS EDITOR
As Smithies wrapped up spring semester earlier this year, they knew they would come back to a changed campus in the fall due to Neilson construction. We knew Neilson would be inaccessible for a while, and we were, naturally, concerned by the potential lack of study spaces that may arise.
We did not, however, know that we’d also see Burton Lawn disappear; Chapin Lawn cut in half by a paved path and have practically no easy way to get from Seelye to Wright Hall. And, the Museum Atrium is now considered a “quiet” study space, which is particularly funny.
Smith also saw a worrying rise in hacked email accounts and phishing emails this past year, which prompted immediate responses asking students to change their email account passwords.
Both of the problems are being dealt with using tech updates this year.
Smith’s response to the problem of fewer study spaces on-campus was SmithScape, a smartphone app developed keeping Smithies’ opinions in mind. A group of students was recruited last year to help with making the app a useful tool to search for study spaces close to wherever one is on-campus.
The app allows the user to filter spaces on the basis of resources and other features, such as whether it’s a quiet space, whether it has natural light, how far it is from the user’s location, etc. The app also lets one add spaces to the already existing database.
The app was formally pitched during student leaders’ training sessions in August, and the response was encouraging.
However, the app does not tell you how crowded any space is at the time you are looking it up, which is a fairly significant shortcoming of the program as most students will know how to navigate the campus but will be looking for information on whether their usual haunts are not the quietest place to study anymore.
With regard to hackings and phishing emails, Smith ITS Services is pushing students to sign up for Duo, a two-factor authentication system. The system is supposed to make sure whoever is logging into your email or Smith account is really you, and it does so by either calling you or sending some sort of push notification to your phone and only once this notification has been acknowledged will the system let you log on, hence the ‘dual’ check process. ITS Services went as far as to offer an extra $5 in printing (in addition to the default $5 for printing provided on OneCards) to all students who enroll in the program by September 30.
A lot of students have complained about the process being annoying and that if they had known what they were getting themselves into, they wouldn’t have done it. Apparently the $5 in printing doesn’t make it worth it. But a few students also said the process only needs to be done once per device, so it ends up being not that bad. They also say they can’t deny that the system makes them feel more secure.
