Two break-ins in a month at the Student Support and Success Center resulted in thousands of dollars in damage, and the alleged thieves had access to confidential student information.
Kathleen Sena, the University registrar, said academic transcripts and other documents containing sensitive student information could potentially have been left on the printer and in open bins in their printer room, which was visited by thieves during a break-in Dec. 17.
“Previously, when we were located in the student services center (on Main Campus), the registrar’s office was alarmed, so our printers, our transcript paper and everything else like that was under an alarm,” she said. “The Student Support and Services Center is not yet alarmed. I don’t know what the plans are.”
Sena said transcripts accumulate on top of the printer over the weekend as the IT Department sends print commands remotely. They’re then picked up Monday morning and mailed out, she said.
Both break-ins, which probably occurred in the early mornings of Dec. 17 and Jan.17, resulted in damages totaling between $8,000 and $11,000, according to a UNM Police Department report and Mike Tuttle, manager of Insurance and Claims at UNM.
After the December break-in, Sena said the SSSC staff secured the only door to the printing room and enforced an existing policy that asked employees to remove all student files from the tops of their desks at the end of the day.
Still, neither of the December or January vandalisms set off an alarm, according to the reports. Both were discovered by UNM Athletics employees as they arrived at the building at the beginning of their work day.
Melissa Vargas, strategic planner for the Office of the Provost, said there were no surveillance cameras or alarms in the lower level of the SSSC.
“Right now we don’t have them,” she said. “I’m thinking we need to step up our security in this building. What we’ll determine is whether it’s cost prohibitive to outfit the entire building with surveillance. Maybe we’ll do it in a few key areas. But certainly we’ll have 24-hour security presence in the building from this point forward. Capital dollars are scarce these days, but our ultimate interest is in protecting student information.”
The SSSC opened last April and processes academic transcripts, financial aid and other student information. Sena said all hard copies of students’ files are still kept in a vault in the Student Services Center on main campus, and there was no risk of any digital student files being damaged or erased, as they’re all backed up in the Registrar’s university wide computer filing system.
“We take the security of our student records very seriously,” she said.
Technology Ventures Corporation, a private tenant in the north wing of the second floor of SSSC, has surveillance cameras pointed at the parking lot, said Carole Jablonski, the SSSC building manager.
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Jablonski said the footage is being reviewed for evidence, and she said the thieves attempted to break in to TVC on Jan. 17, also, which has an alarm, but they didn’t gain access or do any damage.
In the December break-in, the thieves shattered a glass door and stole a laptop, according to the police report.
In the January break-in, the thieves shattered two glass doors when entering, the report stated. Once inside, they damaged a vending machine and computer monitor.
Also, they broke open a cash register and, discovering it to be empty, hurled it outside through a 12 by 4 foot window. However, nothing was stolen.
Stephanie Gutierrez, an employee at the SSSC, said the December break-in could have resulted in stolen documents.
“The first time they broke in through the back door and they went into our actual cubicles and looked through our things,” she said. “They didn’t take anything.”
Gutierrez said she and her co-workers are taking measures to protect their work space valuables from theft, but she said they still don’t feel safe working late at the SSSC.
“If I was here after hours doing overtime or something, I’d feel afraid,” she said.
