The Berry Bikes; D. Alban and E. F. Stephenson

The SGA purchased 20 Schwinn Cruiser bicycles for $190 each. The rationale for spending student fees was that the distance between some buildings on campus made get ting to classes on time difficult. Several fac tors would seem to favor the plan. The cam pus is relatively self-contained; it is unlikely that townspeople would enter college proper ty to use the bikes or that students would ride them off campus where they could be aban doned, lost, or stolen. Berry students probably have a more cooperative ethic than students at many other colleges. For example, there is rel atively high participation in student organizaDaniel Alban is a senior with an interdisciplinary major at Berry College, in Mount Berry, Georgia. Frank Stephenson is an assistantprofessor ofeconom ics in Berry College's Campbell School ofBusiness. 8 tions, many of which are campus religious groups. Observers report a tendency for stu dents there to split the difference during in class market simulation exercises, rather than compete to maximize personal gain, suggest ing that Berry students are not unusually self centered.

Moreover, the student body is relatively small. Anyone who abused a bicycle could be readily identified, and the students harmed by having bicycles mistreated would not be strangers. These factors would presumably deter would-be vandals. Finally, and directly pertinent, privately owned bicycles were not being lost or abused. Dismal Results Unfortunately, the results of the Berry bike project were dismal. It took little time for the misuse of the bicycles to become evident. Writing in the April 2, 1998, Campus Carrier, student Liz Hill reported that "Chains have been broken, tires punctured, handlebars bent, and seats tom" after "only a couple of weeks." Recognizing the underlying cause of the mis treatment, Hill implored students to "treat the bikes as if they were your own property." Evi dently, her column spurred little change. On April 21, SGA President M. Lynsey Morris emailed all students that "It has come to our attention here in the SGA office that many students are failing to take care of the Berry Bikes.... These bicycles are top qual ity and should not be bending and breaking 9 the way they are. The [SGA] officers and other students have seen many people riding the bikes at absurd speeds, doing tricks, and just abusing the bicycles in general." She too requested that students "treat [the bikes] as you would your personal property." Morris's appeal apparently met with little success; a survey at the end of the semester revealed that four of the 20 bikes were lost or stolen and 11 were in a state of disrepair-a 75 percent casualty rate in a mere two months.

Undeterred, the SGA had the bicycles repaired over the summer recess and resumed the program in the fall. It soon became appar ent that the abuse would continue. The Sep tember 10 Campus Carrier editorialized about "mangled corpses of twisted red metal that lie about campus" and concluded that "Perhaps SGA put too much trust in human nature and Berry students' respect for proper ty." Was that the problem? Or was it that the SGA did not understand the role of incen tives? Only a month into the new semester, the SGA suspended the program with the intention of leasing the remaining bicycles to students on a semester-by-semester basis, thereby alleviating the problems associated with common-property resources. Although it may seem cynical or impolitic to point out the failure of the project, we think just the opposite. A primary goal of college is for students to learn, both in and out of the classroom. At a cost of about $2 out of each student's activity fees, the failed Berry bike experiment provides an inexpensive example of the "tragedy of the commons" that students can remember vividly for the rest of their lives. D The Encryption Scramble by Claude V Z. Morgan W hen law professor Peter Junger penned a small computer program for his computer-law class at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, he never dreamed he'd be battling the U.S. Commerce Depart ment for the right to post it on his Web site.