Early last week, anyone with a night class in either Recitation Hall or Old Library was evicted out into the snow when fire alarms sounded around 4:45 p.m. in both buildings. After a little less than an hour of standing in the snow watching firefighters blow smoke out of Recitation and debating if the three hour class should be cancelled or not, a report was given: Apparently, a lit cigarette was dropped into a grated manhole, and the smoldering leaves sent smoke up into both buildings that the manhole was connected to. Students were let back into the building and classes continued. About five minute into class, the room started to buzz as all the students received WCU Safety Alert texts that it was okay to go back into the buildings.Now, there are two things wrong with this story, did you catch them?
If you caught ‘lit cigarette,’ give yourself a point. If you caught the fact that there was a text to go back into the building, but never one to avoid it, give yourself another point.
For about six months now, West Chester has been a smoke free campus. Think back over the last six months. Is anything any different than it was a year ago? There are still congregations of smokers in front of almost every building. Students still light up between classes or when walking to the diner. Regardless of which side of the argument you are on, it would seem that if there is threat of fines; those who smoke would be a little bit more careful of where they toss finished cigarettes. This isn’t really that big of a deal, or a hard thing to do, more of just a common courtesy to those around campus.
The other issue, however, is a bit more of a concern. Imagine that the above story was different. What if it had said “Apparently, there was a bomb in the third floor hallway.” Well, if no one got the message to leave the area, there would have been a lot of injured students being taken out of the area last week. Obviously, the system works. The all clear text was received. If we have a working system, let’s use it.