Something is wrong when tuition goes up but the power goes down. Students don't expect all the comforts of home when they move into a residence hall, but with tuition rates as high as they are now, they should expect the basic necessities.
The August blackout caused widespread problems across the northeastern United States, but it was déjá vu for many students living in Case and Yakeley halls. Yakeley Hall experienced an outage Aug. 29.
Some students missed exams and had to rewrite papers because of the three power outages. The budget is tight right now, but money should not be an issue if students are being left in the dark. Money should be allocated immediately to make sure this type of thing never happens again.
In a university that prepares students for the future, employees should have already been prepared for this catastrophe.
It was helpful that university employees worked long hours to restore power and that students will be excused from exams because of the outages.
But there was nothing done to prevent this situation in the first place. Cables that are 50 years old were found to be the culprit of the Case Hall outage.
And despite renovations to Shaw Hall in 2002, an upgrade of the wires in other residence halls hasn't been done in 50 years, even though people were well aware that cables deteriorate with age and a leak could interrupt the flow of power.
The efforts to prevent another power outage are poorly planned, leaving students scared rather than relieved.
Physical Plant employees re-routed the Case Hall switch to another switch at Cherry Lane Apartments. Building Services Manager Gus Gosselin said that this method could prevent another outage from happening anywhere from five years to the next day.
That's a relief.
There should be some concern whether re-routing the switch to Cherry Lane Apartments will cause a power surge or another disaster, which could then affect both Case Hall and Cherry Lane Apartment residents.
Plans have been made to remedy cable replacements across campus, showing once again that officials always wait until something disastrous happens to act on it.
The plan will be carried out over five years - so current on-campus residents might want to purchase battery-powered alarm clocks.
Under the plan, the wiring on campus south of the Red Cedar River should be done within two years, followed by wiring on the northern part of campus.
It sounds like a formidable plan, but MSU's older buildings - including Mayo Hall, the oldest dormitory at 72 years old - should be a top priority to help preserve the beauty and history of the campus.
In the meantime, students only can save that last-minute paper frequently, take the stairs instead of the elevator and hope that they don't use a bathroom with electric-eye toilets.
