Ian Hinze, Campus Carrier News Editor

The new welcome center at the mail campus entrance, which will be completed in the coming weeks, will have little effect on most Berry students’ daily lives.

The welcome center has been under construction since August and will keep track of who is on campus between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. every week.

Police Chief Bobby Abrams said the welcome center’s main priority is recording and orienting visitors to the campus.

Bryanna Perry, Staff Photojournalist Welcome center at main entrance, nearing completion, should open next month.

“The new facility is a combination of us (campus police) and the welcome side, it’s going to be staffed by student workers, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., if not later,” Abrams said. “Right now, visitors have complete access to the campus, without having to check in during the day, so once we have the welcome center up and running, we’ll be able to know who’s on campus when.”

Currently, the gatehouse leaves the front gate open until 10 p.m., and visitors, including both contractors and prospective students, can enter and exit freely.

Abrams said the procedure at the welcome center will provide a list of what visitors are on campus at any given time, though it will aim to be as unobtrusive to visitors as possible.

“We’ll ask our visitors to produce a driver’s license, which we’ll scan, and we’ll send them on to whatever business they have at Berry,” Abrams said. “It’ll be a very minimal intrusion on their time … it gives us a recording of their visit to campus, and gives us an idea of who’s on our campus at any given time.”

Abrams said students, faculty and staff with decals on their car windows will still be able to pass freely through the front gate, and as such will experience little change to their lives.

“I don’t think you’ll see much effect on the student side,” Abrams said. “As they (students) come in the main entrance, they’ll have the credentials, the decal on their window, and we’ll readily open the gate for them; they won’t have to come through the visitor side.”

The new welcome center will not affect the visitor procedure after hours.

“After hours, visitors will still be required to be called in just as they are now. We will be operating the same way at night with the new welcome center, but during business hours we’ll also know what visitors are on campus,” Abrams said.

“We’re not trying to deter people from coming to Berry during business hours, we just want to know who’s on campus.”