Students and professors have expressed concern about maintenance issues in the campus science labs.
The labs in Dawson-Loeffler Science and Mathematics Center were built 25 years ago and are mainly used by chemistry, biology and physics students. Concerns are related to temperature, ventilation and broken equipment.
Emily Hernández, cellular and molecular biology sophomore, said ventilation issues are occurring because of the chemistry lab renovation last year.
“Working in the new chemistry lab is great, but it leads to other issues,” Hernández said. “In the chemistry lab, we have these hoods, and that’s where we do all of our toxic experiments, things that you should not be inhaling. The vent hoods have these little glass walls that you pull down, so that only your arms are exposed. However, during the afternoons, when the other section is working, there is an overwhelming fume of hexane. There is kind of this acceptance of being exposed to chemicals that we should not be inhaling.”
Hernández said other students have complained about the hoods, and students sometimes have to leave the lab because of the fumes.
“We’ve had a few people get headaches,” she said. “My friend and I have had to step out of the room. We have to take a Tylenol or drink of water and then have to come in and return to work. A professor once poured vinegar down the chemistry lab drain, and then he came to the biology lab and smelled everything.”
Other issues include the inability to control the building’s temperature. This has caused worms to die and experiments involving them to not be carried out. Dr. Greg Mullen, associate professor of biology, said his worms almost died because of temperature issues.
“We were putting fans on the containers to try and make it a livable environment for them,” he said. “Our lab technician sacrificed her fan to put air on them. It’s oddly hard to get incubators to stay at room temperature. We made it through, though.”
Scott Seefeldt, biology senior, also brought up issues of broken equipment and not having the proper tools to carry out labs. Equipment that needs to be fixed are scales and spectrophotometers.
“In the physical chemistry lab, equipment has been broken,” Seefeldt said. “We only had lab three times out of however long we were scheduled. There is also the issue of heat. Especially during the winter months, the heat was so high that we couldn’t get anything done.”
Mullen said there has been progress since the temperature is lower than it used to be.
“We have made some recent and significant changes,” he said. “The temperature was running at 84 to 85 degrees. After several emails from myself, it is now running in the low 70s.”
Dr. Adam Ryburn, professor and chairman of biology, said temperature issues are more to do with maintenance.
“We have no control over this,” Ryburn said. “It’s all to do with facilities. This has always been a problem. This is something we constantly have to battle. It’s not good for the students. We finally went to the dean and she intervened on our behalf, which is how the issue was fixed.”
Ryburn said there has been discussion about renovating the biology labs, but funding is the main issue.
“There’s a new funding campaign going on,” he said. “We hope that the biology department will reap some of the benefits of that and that there will be leftovers. The advancement office reaches out to alumni and donors for money. There is a long list of things that need to be fixed. It’s easy to say ‘I have a person to contact to ask for money,’ but they may have already been contacted by the university.”
Ryburn said the physics lab is the current priority because it is being prepared for a new physical therapy program that President Martha Burger said is one of her main goals for the academic year. Biology would be third on the list.
“We have the most biology students in all of the science majors,” he said. “They are required to take physics and chemistry classes, so they still use the labs. They do enjoy the benefits of it.”
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