A hidden-camera investigation by Team 4's Paul Van Osdol found serious security gaps at four out of five local colleges.

The report appears below. It first aired May 10, 2004, on Channel 4 Action News at 6 p.m.

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A back entrance to Turnbull Hall at Indiana University of Pennsylvania is supposed to be locked, but it's open. We're able to walk right in. Once we're in, we're able to walk all over the dorm without being questioned.

The door to a third-floor bathroom where police say a woman was sexually assaulted earlier this year is wide open. There's a woman in the shower. Her towel is hanging over the door.

Brett Sokolow, campus security expert: "That scares me. If I were a parent and I were visiting a college, trying to gain some reassurance I was turning my son or daughter over to a safe environment, one of the things I would be looking for is locking bathrooms."

An IUP spokesperson says dorm bathrooms have alarms. She says the dorm's back door had been left open after a fire drill.

Campus Crime Stats IUP CMU Duquesne WVU Pitt

Michelle Fryling, IUP spokesperson: "Should you have been able to get into that door? Absolutely not."

Van Osdol: "If I can get in, then certainly someone with evil intent can get in."

Fryling: "Right, and we hope that doesn't happen."

IUP students tell us it's not hard to get into dorms, even when all the doors are locked.

Natalie Corio, sophomore: "Anybody can be behind you and say they live in the building and they don't really. Just walk right in. It's so easy."

Van Osdol: "Happens all the time?"

Corio: "Yeah."

It's called "tailgating." We found it's also easy to do at other colleges.

The entrance to Duquesne University's largest dormitory, Duquesne Towers, looks secure. Students need a swipe card to get in. There's also a guard who's supposed to keep non-students out.

Team 4 easily gets around security. I follow a student right past the guard and he never challenges me. I'm able to get on the elevator and go up to any floor.

I do it again, walking past the guard and onto the elevator. This time, I go to the dorm's top floor and find open access to suites and bathrooms.

Duquesne's dorm director says she will use our tape as an example of how not to keep dorms secure.

Sharon Oelschlager: "As much as we don't like when we are caught not doing our jobs, it only helps us to reinforce our staff."

At Carnegie Mellon University's Resnik Hall, there is no security staff. Like IUP and Duquesne, dorm doors are opened with swipe cards. Yet, after we show up, we're forced to wait less than a minute. When a student walks out, we're in.

We have full run of the dorm. The lounges on two floors that are supposed to be locked are left open. That gives us access to students' food. We also find plenty of unlocked room doors.

Sokolow says schools have a hard time convincing students to keep others out of their dorms.

Sokolow: "It's this feeling of invulnerability that causes students not to take self-protective security measures."

He also says some schools could do more -- like West Virginia University, where we find access to dorms easier than anywhere else. We follow a woman into all-female Boreman Hall through the front door and all the way to her room without anything or anyone stopping us.

Some students leave their room doors open, despite signs warning them to keep doors locked. Like other dorms we checked, bathrooms are unlocked. There's no alarms, there's no card access, there's no security desk. We just walked right in.

Actually, there are alarms and locks. They're turned on only at night.

Sokolow: "A lot of colleges have a night-only locking policy -- like bad things happen only at night, which is not correct."

Bob Roberts, WVU police chief: "Would I like to see card swipes on all the exterior doors, and them alarmed? Sure. Will that happen? We're working on it."

Whether or not it's because of lax security, crime is increasing at local colleges, and that's a national trend. From 2000 to 2002, rapes in college dorms around the country were up 23 percent, robberies were up 26 percent and burglaries were up 15 percent.

Sokolow says the tight security at the University of Pittsburgh could be a model for other schools. We were unable to breach security at Pitt's dorms. A security guard swipes identification cards for every student entering the dorm, which makes it tough to tailgate.

Whatever security system schools use, Sokolow says they need to make sure it works.

Sokolow: "One of the things I think is most dangerous is to tell students they are in an environment of safety, but then not have a follow-up to ensure and safeguard that campuses are truly safe places."

Let's review:

We tested IUP, Duquesne, WVU, CMU and Pitt.

We got into dorms unnoticed at IUP, Duquesne, WVU and CMU. Only Pitt stopped us because we didn't have campus ID.

We saw security guards in dorms at Pitt and Duquesne. We saw no guards at the other three.