After a number of incidents involving unauthorized students entering female dorm rooms and assaulting women last semester, the Office of Residence Life and the Association of Residence Hall Students have finally decided that something needs to be done.

Last week the two organizations started talking about methods for making the dorms more secure, including locking the dorms all day everyday, which is similar to the system in place for football weekends; doors that lock in the showers; and keycards to enter the rooms.

The university needs to do everything it can to prevent incidents like those that happened in Brumbaugh and Snyder halls from occurring again. Even if that means taking more drastic measures, the university shouldn't wait for the next incident to put these security measures in place.

They're good ideas, too. It makes sense that only people who live in a building should be able to walk right in.

And there's no real reason not to have locked shower doors in dorm bathrooms, since otherwise anyone can walk into the bathroom and into an occupied shower. It's a dangerous situation, especially in co-ed dorms.

How difficult could it be to keep the dorms locked at all times? It's already done in the evenings and on football weekends. The inconvenience to the university and students couldn't be enough to stop officials from doing something that could protect dorm residents. Residents have a job to do, too. They need to take simple precautions, such as locking their dorm rooms at night and not letting anyone they don't know into their buildings after hours.

However, we can't expect the students to take all the responsibility for keeping themselves safe, especially after last semester's incidents.