On Sept. 4, the NYU Abu Dhabi Student Government held its second General Assembly of the semester. The meeting, which was also attended by representatives from the Office of Public Safety, focused on the current emergency door policy in Residential Colleges. There were also elections for the Board of Appeals.

Coming back to NYUAD after the summer break, students discovered or were informed by their Resident Assistants that the emergency doors in Residential Colleges can no longer be used as exits. According to the Senior Director of Public Safety Michael Scollan, the glass doors can now only be used as exits on weekdays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., whereas the steel doors have alarms that are activated 24/7. Alarms of doors in the non-visitation building of Residential College A5 are also activated 24/7.

Numerous students voiced their discontent and confusion over the new policy, prompting Student Government to invite representatives from the Office of Public Safety to the GA in order to discuss the decision. According to Student Government President Rend Beiruti, the Office of Residential Education was also invited to the meeting, but declined earlier that day.

Scollan began the meeting by clarifying that the new policy regarding emergency doors had always been on the cards.

According to Scollan, since the Saadiyat Campus is not yet completed — and won’t be for the next three years — new rules are coming into existence, and are being implemented gradually, changing the way students are allowed to navigate the campus.

According to him, the Office of Public Safety and Campus Life worked together to activate alarms on all doors before students returned from summer break. According to the Student Government minutes of the GA, Scollan stated that in the United States, all universities dorms have one entrance and one exit, and since this is a U.S. American university, we have to follow U.S. university regulations. Aware that this measure could come as a shock to students, the Office of Public Safety tried to achieve a middle ground by allotting a period of time in the day when students could freely use the glass doors.

Afterward, there was time for students at the GA to discuss the new measures. Most students present expressed disagreement with the policy, suggesting ideas to prevent the misuse of emergency doors. It was also suggested that since most students use the doors between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., the hours of usage should change to reflect that.

Some students were also concerned with the rapid progress of safety rules on campus, finding that limitations continued to restrict student movement without consent or warning.

The GA ended with a vote on the nominations for the Board of Appeals. Senior Belmin Mostic and junior Yan Li were the nominated candidates. They were confirmed by an overwhelming majority. Additionally, senior Vladislav Maksimov was confirmed as Chief of the Board of Appeals.