On Sept. 10, a Saint Louis University student passed away after falling from a balcony on the 12th floor of Marchetti Towers East. In response to this event, the Department of Housing and Residence Life is looking at multiple options to improve the safety of balconies.

Although there is not a set plan at this time, Alvin Sturdivant, the director of Housing and Residence Life, said that they are considering many possibilities.

“At this point, we don’t have any concrete plans,” Sturdivant said. “We are exploring.”

While the Marchetti Towers are not the only on-campus buildings with balconies-the Student Village has balconies on its second and third floors-they are the tallest by far.

Sturdivant, who said that this was the first documented case involving balcony danger, stressed the importance of providing students with knowledge of the potential risks of using balconies.

“We need to be proactive in [letting students know] what the dangers are,” Sturdivant said. “I look at [the balcony issue] as a serious issue, and one that we need to address as quickly as we can.”

Although they may pose safety risks, legal implications aren’t part of the mix.

“Balconies, in and of themselves, do not increase the University’s liability,” Jeff Fowler, associate vice president for Marketing and Communications, said.

Sturdivant also added to the liability doubt, claiming that the balconies’ layouts fall within city codes.

“The state and the city haven’t indicated that there are any issues,” Sturdivant said.

Perhaps the biggest risk involving balconies is that students sometimes hop between adjacent balconies, which are only separated by a railing.

Senior Beth Wurtzler, who lived in Marchetti East last year, said that her roommate and some her friends used to hop back and forth between balconies.

“My roommate and our neighbors would get a chair and use it as a step to get over,” Wurtzler said.

“If one of us came back and was locked out, we knew our neighbors, and would just go over [the balcony] and go in [through their room] to unlock it because we left our screen doors open.”

In order to avoid such instances, Sturdivant suggested blocking off adjacent balconies from one another, to fully enclose the open space. However, the only current plan involves holding floor meetings in order to educate students in balcony safety.