New restrictions to NYU Abu Dhabi elevator access for students were implemented beginning on Jan. 13. Among other changes for the wider NYUAD community, students will lose elevator access to the lower two floors of residential C buildings, where some public classroom and offices are located.

On the Saadiyat campus, there are certain residential buildings where elevator access spans all floors, from the basement level to the higher student floors and roof. In the past, students have been able to use this full elevator access. Students living on the fifth floor, for example, could enter any such building from the ground level, press the Level 5 button in the elevator and ride directly to their floor.

Two schoolwide emails from Public Safety on Jan. 12 and 13 informed the community of a new Access Control System. In this system, students can no longer access Levels B2 through 2 from the elevators in residential buildings.

To reach these now restricted floors, students must use one of the four public elevators on campus or the elevators in Campus Center. External and internal stairs will also grant free entrance to these levels.

Student reaction to the policy change has varied, with some on Facebook expressing confusion over the exact terms of the policy and consternation over the restriction of access from Levels 0 to 1.

Although this is the first time non-public elevator access has been restricted, Public Safety Associate Director of Operations Robert Titus says this policy is an extension of the original design intention for Saadiyat campus.

“As the original design, the way [the campus] was purpose-built, that is what we’re enforcing now,” Titus said. “It’s based on the New York model, that it’s an open community.”

Students will still have access to the student floors of any building on campus, unless that building is non-visitation for the student’s gender.

What will change is students not being able to ride any elevator directly from the ground level to a student floor. Now, a student would have to take a public elevator to Level 2, the highline. Once on the highline, the student can walk to their dorm buildings, where they scan their NYU ID card to enter and then take a second elevator ride to their floor.

“We know it’s going to take an adjustment period for the student population because they’re used to going through the academic buildings in utilizing the elevators, but that was not the intent [of the original Saadiyat design],” said Titus.

Public Safety Security Manager Norca Vincent said that the Access Control System has been put in place in order to make student spaces private, guaranteeing that their floors be reserved for only them.

“We don’t want staff, individuals who aren’t authorized … to have access to those elevators, so this is why we’re blocking that off,” she said. “So, for example, someone who’s working at IT, he wouldn’t be able to just shoot up from the academic floor all the way up to the dormitory.”

She also added that the Access System Control ensures non-student visitors wishing to enter student floors would have to sign in prior to entry.

“We need to also monitor visitors,” she said. “Students have visitors, and we have to know who’s at the building at any time in case of emergency.”

Junior Farah Shammout said she sees the logic behind the policy.

“I agree with it,” she said. “The students need to keep in mind that the residential and the [public] academic parts of the university are integrated, so elevators would be the only way of splitting them.”

While junior Maddie Moore says she understands the policy from a personal safety standpoint, the new restriction poses a problem for her as president of the Film Collective, a Student Interest Group on campus that aids students in their film productions. She says that transporting heavy equipment, which is often stored in student rooms, will be more difficult now without direct elevator access to the ground level.

“I guess we can’t take things in one go, we’ll be making a lot more trips, and we’ll have to go a less direct route,” she said, adding that the public elevators don’t always fit the collective’s equipment carts.

Despite the possibility of inconvenience, senior Mastewal Terefe foresees students being able to accustom themselves to the new policy.

“I think there are things we should expect … to get used to, like when the whole show your ID system was going on,” said Tarawneh. “I feel like we’re just going to get used to it at some point.”

The new Saadiyat elevator system differs from the one that was in place in Sama, NYUAD’s temporary previous residential campus. Students there could access all the floors of the building, while still enjoying the privacy ensured by the building’s NYU ID swiping system, which enabled only students to enter dorm floors.

“Maybe they can think about [that system], or they should think about it,” said Terefe. “I would say that would be preferable, if it’s feasible.”

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