UNI STUDENTS SHOULD notice some significant changes around the building for the 2008-09 school year, if all goes according to plan.

The changes are intended to improve school security. According to Director/Principal Steve Epperson and Assistant Principal Sue Kovacs, the one that will most directly affect students is the plan to lock Uni's doors.

This would make the school accessible only by proxy cards, which could be read from several feet away from the doors, without being removed from students' pockets, lanyards, purses, wallets, or backpacks. Before these doors can be put in place, however, central air conditioning must be installed in order for hallways to stay ventilated.

Uni students would need to have their proxy cards with them whenever entering or leaving the building.

Both Epperson and Kovacs say that they can relate to critics of the plan.

"I emphasize to the students I meet with that I really don't want to do this," said Epperson. "It doesn't seem to fit with Uni's culture. On the other hand, I don't want anybody to get hurt either. Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do, and that's kind of where we're at right now."

Uni is different from most high schools in the sense that faculty and students are not contained in a single building, but rather spread throughout Uni, Kenney Gym, the Math and Hue houses, and the Siebel Center, along with students on free periods who may be anywhere on or off campus.

Combined with the fact that Uni also lacks a public address system, communication could be extremely difficult in an emergency situation. This leads to the other major changes students can expect.

In order to help fight communication difficulties, floors one through three will each be equipped with an emergency code red buzzer that could trigger the alarm for the whole school in the event of an emergency preventing someone from triggering the alarm in the main office.

Each classroom will also have a two-way intercom connecting to the main office. However, the entire school will not be connected, sparing teachers and students from the possibility of tedious morning announcements.

Both Epperson and Kovacs stress that these plans are not final, and the University of Illinois is still in the process of looking at the costs of implementing a proxy-card system.

"I fought it [the proxy card system] and I fought it and I fought it, until Virginia Tech," said Kovacs. "If we had to lock our doors and you had to scan or unlock every time you came up to the school, that would bother me, but the fact that you can walk up and have the proxy card on you and have the doors open, that to me seems fine. That's the best of both worlds. It's very expensive though."