ORONO – For a handful of students at the University of Maine, buying textbooks, fine-tuning class schedules and checking in weapons are all normal parts of their back-to-school routine.

Student hunters, martial arts enthusiasts and paint-ball fiends are welcome to live on campus or in fraternity and sorority houses, but they must lock their weapons up at the UMaine Department of Public Safety, where a room is earmarked for that purpose.

“I was surprised to hear about the gun room,” student hunter Tyler Alexander, 20, of Richmond, Vt., said Tuesday. “I didn’t think the university would be that accommodating. It’s very convenient.”

A 2003 nationwide poll of 150 schools showed that UMaine is one of only 11 schools that has storage facilities for guns on campus, according to Alliance for Justice, an association of advocacy organizations.

Slightly over 4 percent of U.S. college students own firearms, according to a recent Harvard University study.

Only 1 percent of UMaine students living on campus, or 40 to 50 a year, store guns at the department, according to university officials.

If students want to keep their weapons close at hand, they have no other option. University policy prohibits students from keeping or using weapons, including firearms, BB guns, bows, rockets and slingshots anywhere on campus, or in vehicles driven on campus.

Students caught with unchecked weapons face stiff penalties and could be expelled. The weapons policy, which has been in place “at least 20 years,” according to Dean of Students Robert Dana, was developed as part of a set of common-sense safety rules governing residence halls.

It overrides any concealed weapons permits that either students or staff possess.

“There are rules that pertain to those who insist on packing heat on campus,” UMaine Public Safety Director Noel March said Monday. “If a person is unwilling to comply with the rules, the university has the right to terminate its relationship with that person.”

Campus officials think the policy has helped the university obtain its low rate of on-campus weapons offenses. There have been none since Jan. 1, 2002, according to officials.

“Luckily, gun use on campus is not a problem. We don’t want it to be a problem, and wouldn’t accept it were it to become a problem,” Dana said Wednesday. “We would look upon it very dimly if there was a gun in the residence halls.”

Students who want to check their weapons fill out a claim card with identity information and the gun’s make, model, and serial number. They are assigned a numbered slot and then must hand in an empty, open weapon.

The gun room now is filled with hunting rifles and longbows in camouflage carrying cases. Students sometimes do hand over more exotic items, including paint-ball guns, swords, and the martial art weapon nunchakus.

Public Safety officers do not recall any students ever checking in handguns.

Students may retrieve their checked weapons at any time, day or night.

“During hunting season, students come in early,” Public Safety communications supervisor Charles McInnis said Tuesday.

To pick up a weapon, students present their claim tag and photo identification to a Public Safety attendant, McInnis said.

“It can be easy to recognize someone coming in the door for their weapon,” he said. “However, for the safety of the campus and to ensure that the owners get their weapons, we require a valid picture ID.”

Alexander, however, didn’t recall that he had to show identification. The UMaine junior said he usually picks up his weapon every other weekend between October and March.

“No photo ID required,” he said. “It’s at the point where they know us on a first name basis.”

If a student coming in to collect a weapon showed signs of intoxication or impairment, officers would not hand it over, March said.

The system prohibiting guns on campus is designed to eliminate incidents such as one that happened in 2003, when there was a still-unsolved rash of car burglaries on campus.

“One vehicle had a 9 millimeter handgun taken from it,” March said. “The university takes this kind of violation of the weapons policy very seriously because this kind of action places the whole community in danger, not just the university.”

It is no surprise that a university located close to hunting and fishing country counts many sportsmen and women in its student body, Alexander said.

He hunts ruffed grouse and snowshoe hare in the woods near Passadumkeag with his 20-gauge shotgun and loves the beauty of the woods and the camaraderie and challenge of hunting.

“Here in Maine and northern New England, the hunting tradition is very strong,” he said. “This gun-check system allows students to continue that heritage in a very comfortable way.”