Exposed wires, missing ceiling tiles and industrial fans clutter the hallways of United Methodist Hall almost a month after the fourth-floor flood.
A ruptured gasket, which officials attribute to the 5.8-magnitude earthquake in Pawnee, Oklahoma, more than a month ago, caused the Sept. 8 flood. The flood damaged six rooms, three of which housed students, who had to be relocated.
Overall, the situation was handled well. The disaster response team and maintenance crews quickly got to work on the issues, and officials made accommodations for the students who had to move out of their rooms due to damage. The rooms with tenants were repaired, and the last step is to replace the ceiling tiles and paint the walls, officials said.
Read more about the situation in Methodist Hall on Page 1.
But, maintenance work continues throughout the building and only a few students know what’s going on.
Throughout the whole ordeal, not one email was sent to all the residents of Methodist explaining what happened or what they’re doing to fix it. It’s clear they’re working hard to fix the issues, but some students have no idea what the issues even are.
Kevin Culbertson, coordinator of housing operations, said there’s no sense in keeping people on the opposite side of the building up-to-date, but just because someone lives on the opposite side of the building doesn’t mean they shouldn’t know what’s going on in the place where they live.
Students who had to move out of their rooms were kept informed about the situation, but that communication is not enough. It makes sense that officials want to have a more personal relationship with those affected the most, but they can still do that while keeping everyone up-to-date with what’s going on.
Not communicating the issues to all of its residents is irresponsible and makes students feel like the problem isn’t being addressed. It causes confusion about what’s going on and leaves students wondering if they should be concerned. It also makes some students feel like the housing department is just trying to make things look better than they are by not disclosing the negative things that happened. All that does is cause more students to complain, rather than be happy that the situation is being resolved.
Officials said that, by the end of the week, students won’t even know there was a flood, but a lot of that is due to the fact that they won’t tell students, not because they’ve done a good job of cleaning up after the situation.
More open lines of communication will benefit students and housing officials. Sending emails explaining the situation to the building’s residents just makes sense. It also helps develop the relationship between residents and housing officials, which can only mean good things for the dorms.
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