It’s 3 p.m. and class on the seventh floor of the DePaul Center is dismissed. Students scramble to gather their coats, hastily stuff their notebooks in their bags and head to the door.

They rush down the hall to the bank of elevators. Two students hit both the up and down buttons, and they wait. Rarely does one of the eight elevator doors open, but when it does, it is packed with people.

Soon the small area is congested with a throng of anxious students worrying about making it to their next class just across the street. Matt Hilker, a sophomore math major, is used to this annoyance.

“Once I got trapped for 20 minutes,” Hilker said. “I’m just surprised they don’t have an open stairwell.”

Hilker’s amazement at the lack of stair access leads one to think about the most obvious solution to end congestion in the DePaul Center and alleviate some of the stress of student life: open up a stairwell.

DePaul Center has four stairwells, according to the evacuation maps posted near the elevator banks. Two are located in the north side of the building and two in the south. Unfortunately all four of those stairwells are to only be used in an emergency, and an alarm will sound if the doors are opened.

Bob Wachowski, the director of public safety, feels the need to designate the stairwells in DePaul Center for emergency use only is an issue of student safety.

“The doors are in an emergency-only mode due to the mixed-use occupancy along with the high rise designation,” Wachowski said. “Also, the stairs exit into the back house of spaces or outside locations.”

The first floor of the DePaul Center is the home to an array of shops and eateries, which are open to the public. This means that if the university were to simply open up the four stairwells, anyone with access to the first floor will have access to the entire building. Rachel Morrison, senior marketing major, feels that safety would not be an issue if DePaul Center were to open its stairwells.

“I use the stairs at Lewis,” Morrison said. “It just doesn’t seem like it would be a problem.”

But to ensure student safety and to keep unwanted guests out of backroom areas, a card access system could be put into use at all the stairwells at ground level. A system is already in place for the classrooms and bathroom in the basement of DePaul Center and in many buildings throughout campus. Cost may factor into this proposal. Though Blackboard, the makers of the card access system used at DePaul, does not post their prices on their website, older Blackboard systems run for about $40 on eBay.

Other similar card access systems go for anywhere from $10 to $600 online. For this plan to work, it would require a card access system on all four of the stairwell doors on each floor, which would add up. However, Michael Caryl, a freshman administration major, brought up another valid point. Students do not necessarily need access to the entire building through the stairwell, just enough to make it over to the Lewis Center where students have the option of more elevators and two open stairwells.

“When I first started, I’d get here 10 minutes early because I though it was enough,” Caryl said. “But it’s not. I’ll go into the Lewis Center just to transfer over because it’s easier.”

Allowing enough stair access to get over to the Lewis Center to take an elevator is a more cost effective solution to the problem. Though the Lewis Center has smaller elevators, there are stairs students can take to exit the building. The access to DePaul Center’s stairwells can remain locked on ground level, keeping students safe from any outside dangers.

As long as students have access to the floors that connect to the Lewis Center, a quick jaunt up or down a few flights of stairs will provide them with more options, and save students the embarrassment of strolling in late to class.