COLUMN: Students deserve CMU's protection
If you live in any of the north campus residence halls, you may be surprised to learn that you do not have a fire suppression system installed in your building.
Meanwhile, as reported last Wednesday, the south quad residence halls, with the exception of Sweeney Hall, will be given a brand new system. This is a $4.6 million investment.
Are you telling me that after charging students thousands of dollars for books, tuition, housing and miscellaneous fees, CMU cannot equip five of the 21 residence hall buildings with fire suppression?
This is absolutely ridiculous.
A university's top priority should be safety, but I wonder, after hearing about this project, whether that is the case here on our campus.
Vice president of Facilities Management, Steve Lawrence, said the buildings lacking a fire suppression system might be examined in the future.
I actually cringed a little bit there.
It shouldn't be examined. It should be done.
If there is a fire in any of those buildings lacking suppression, you might not die, but you never know – stop, drop and roll. That might actually come in handy.
I left a voice mail with Doug Kendrick, assistant director for the North Campus residence halls, asking for his comments on this issue, but he did not return my phone call. This makes me wonder even more about the lapse in safety for this area of campus and the university's response to this issue.
Days before the 2012-2013 academic year began, Central Michigan Life reported on the $1.5 million renovation at Real Food on Campus residential restaurant, with a focus on the addition of a new Mongolian-style grill.
Don't get me wrong. I love Mongolian food just as much as the next guy, but that could have been $1.5 million spent on other, more pressing issues. Perhaps on properly equipping residence halls for fires.
I fully understand funds have to be appropriated for any investment in an institution such as CMU. I'm just wondering why someone hasn't stepped forward and demanded something like this be fixed.
Am I the only one taking this seriously?
We spend so much money on renovations, upgrades and athletic programs that we seem to have forgotten that safety should be, without fail, our top priority.
Student reaction has been mixed, but the general consensus has been that it is unacceptable for any residence hall on campus, in 2014, to be lacking a fire suppression system.
