Last night the identification card access system stopped working across campus.

The problem occurred at approximately 5:45 p.m. in various dorms and lasted for the next several hours.

During this time of in-operation, Resident Assistants were assigned to stand at the main entrances of their buildings and to open doors for returning students.

Jennifer Brown (senior-elementary education), RA for Atherton Hall, was also instructed to check students' keys for verification that they lived in the building.

If students did not have their keys available or were visiting someone living in the dorm, they had to call from a phone inside and be escorted upstairs.

She added that the ID's were still functioning as meal points and Lion Cash, however, the card balance wouldn't show.

Jocelyn Brown (junior-English), RA for Porter Hall, sat near the entrance of her dorm to make sure that students could get in and that there was no piggy-backing.

She looked at students' names on their ID's and then checked them on a bulletin board roster in her lobby.

Brown explained that a security guard patrolling the area told her that repairs could take up to three hours, since it was taking 5-10 minutes at least to fix each of the close to 50 different entrances that were not working.

Porter Hall's card access system began operation again at around 9:30 p.m., Brown said.

In the case of Simmons Hall, RA Pat Gross (senior-business logistics) said that his building already has key checkers working every night during study hours, which begin at 8 p.m. Therefore, RA's were not used in that capacity.

Gross, who has been an RA for two years, said he can't remember ever experiencing this problem in the past.

However, he said that although not trained for this particular situation, RA's undergo instruction that can be applied to situations similar to this.

"We know how to handle things and stay calm," Gross said.

However, some students were still inconvenienced by the card swipe inactivation.

"My girlfriend and I tried to get into my dorm at around 6 p.m. and couldn't," said Kooshan Nayerahmadi (sophomore-philosophy) who lives in West Halls.

He added that there was not an RA visible so they could not get in and went elsewhere.

When contacted last night, Penn State Police Services and Office of Physical Plant could not provide any information regarding this situation.