Written by David Lapakko\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Times when there was a little more trust<\/b><\/p>\n Both young and old can make fun of many things out of the past–for example, the fact that I had to learn how to do math in high school with something called a slide rule, because personal electronic calculators were still not quite a standard part of our lives.\u00a0 But at the same time, despite the lack of sophisticated technology, there was a sense of trust–bordering on naivete, I suppose–that I still sometimes miss.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Take a publication called <\/span>The<\/span> Auggie<\/span>.\u00a0 Back in the \u201880s and \u201890s, <\/span>The<\/span> Auggie<\/span> came out every fall.\u00a0 It was a printed campus directory for faculty, staff, and students.\u00a0 For students and professors, it included each person\u2019s campus address, home address, and phone number–and it also included a personal photo, since most of us opted to include one (taken by a campus photographer).\u00a0 In its own way, <\/span>The<\/span> Auggie<\/span> was kind of charming–you could see what a professor looked like, find out who was from Iowa, or be able to call someone on a moment\u2019s notice, because you had their number.\u00a0 But–and you probably know where this is going–to make such a wealth of personal information available to anyone put the school as well as its students in a vulnerable position.\u00a0 Sleazy people could and possibly did take advantage of it.\u00a0 So, the right to be known was replaced by the right to privacy, and <\/span>The<\/span> Auggie<\/span> bit the dust.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In a similar vein, you may remember that before COVID hit, many different types of vendors normally occupied tables during the lunch hour in the Christiansen Center lobby.\u00a0 This could include a woman hawking jewelry, an organization selling roses for Valentine\u2019s Day, or a military recruiter.\u00a0 But it was pretty much a \u201cfind a table and set up shop\u201d kind of operation–why would you need to regulate something like that?\u00a0 Well, one time in the early 2000s, a woman saying she was a nurse was offering low-cost flu shots.\u00a0 I remember Chris Kimball, our dean at the time, talking up this marvelously cheap and convenient way to get the vaccine; he was among those who took the woman up on it.\u00a0 But then, the bad news: she was a nurse, but the \u201cflu shots\u201d she was offering were largely saline solution; in other words, it was a scam.\u00a0 Now you know why ever since, any such vendor in Christiansen needs to post a permit to conduct their business.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Finally, don\u2019t get me started on locked doors.\u00a0 Suffice it to say that campus buildings and rooms were much more accessible, both day and night.\u00a0 The word \u201cfob\u201d had hardly been invented yet, and it was mostly used in the context of keyless entry systems for cars.\u00a0 The ramping up of campus security was no doubt necessary and inevitable, but I miss the days when it was assumed that most everyone could be trusted.\u00a0 It was a simpler time, when Auggies went to the Chin Wag grill (now the Admissions Office), grabbed a burger and fries, studied the photos of all their classmates, and felt a little more free and invincible.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Periodic Tale of Departmental Lore (Part 7) Written by David Lapakko\u00a0 Times when there was a little more trust …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":459,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,13,2,8,12,88],"tags":[114,65,113],"class_list":["post-25660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni","category-communication-studies","category-faculty","category-film","category-new-media","category-students","tag-campus-history","tag-david-lapakko","tag-department"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/459"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25660"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25706,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25660\/revisions\/25706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}