By Marie OryManaging Editor

Faculty and staff members at Nicholls received a memo Nov. 8 asking them to add an accessory to their wardrobe when preparing to come to work.

Ronald Boudreaux, director of human resources, along with University Police Chief Grady Morris and Donald Yates, director of environmental health and safety, requested that faculty and staff members wear their ID badges while on campus.

“We are not mandating that they wear [ID’s], but we are encouraging all of our faculty and staff to wear them,” Boudreaux said.

Members of the human resources department had talked about the possibility of having staff members wear ID badges. After the Sept. 11 attacks, they moved forward with the plan in an effort to improve safety measures on campus .

Despite the fact that there have not been instances on campus to cause this kind of policy to be implemented earlier, the department members brought it up before the president’s cabinet, he said.

“We wanted to try to move forward in having our faculty wear these ID badges. We are a public institution and anybody can walk on this campus. A lot of people do not know who is who,” Boudreaux said.

“At least, if you are walking to a building at night, and you see someone (wearing an ID badge), you may have a sense of security that you are talking to someone who works there, not just someone who is roaming the hallway.”

This change is not mandated by the state although employees of many state agencies are required to wear ID badges.

The University, at this time, will not mandate this and make it a policy because it will never get 100 percent participation, and currently there are no consequences if ID badges are not worn, Boudreaux said.

“I hope it to be permanent, as long as we keep encouraging the staff to wear them. We are not here to police them into wearing them,” he said.

Staff members have given the department feedback as to whether or not they like the idea of wearing the ID badges. According to Boudreaux, he has gotten mixed feelings.

“Faculty and staff have given us feedback basically thanking us for doing it, but I also had feedback from people saying that they are not happy about having to do that,” Boudreaux said.

One of the major concerns that Boudreaux was faced with was the fact that social security numbers appear on all faculty and staff ID cards. Many staff members were concerned with this, he said.

Boudreaux allowed for staff members to get a slip requesting a picture retake, and they can then have the social security number blocked out. He also said they can use white out on the cards.

As far as students go, it looks as though they will not have to wear their IDs just yet.

“I wish that all students would have them available, but we are not mandating or doing anything with the students,” Boudreaux said.

If anything is to be done to get the students to wear IDs, the request would have to go through the Student Life Office or Student Affairs. As of this time Boudreaux has not had any conversations with them concerning the idea, but he said it would be something to look into.