By Sofia A. Ramirez
Since the second week of school, there have been a series of fire alarms triggered on McPherson College campus, more specifically, in Dotzour Hall. A lot of Dotzour residents are fed up with the constant fire alarms, especially because the majority of them have been taking place in the late hours of the night.
“Not a fan, I like sleeping, and I don’t like to be woken up early or abruptly. I also kind of worry about being in the shower when it happens,” said London Norris, a freshman in Dotzour hall. Of course, some of the fire alarms that have taken place are in fact only drills to help keep students in the residence halls safe.
“I don’t like them, but some of them are necessary. I am glad that we are working on keeping a safe campus, at least the ones that are drills. The ones that do go off in the middle of the night, I hope that they continue to be less and less,” said Sierra Portenier, a Resident Assistant from Dotzour.
There have been a lot of mixed messages about what has caused most of the fire alarms. There were a couple of fire alarms in the first few weeks that were caused by faulty wiring in the Dotzour alarms, however, those are in the process of being fixed. “From what I have heard, it’s from people who don’t put water in ramen for some reason. Who overcook stuff, who leave stuff in the oven and in the microwave and forget about it, and I think smoking is also a thing,” said Norris.
Sierra also added, “I do know smoke in the kitchens and cooking has been the cause of some of them. I know that we have a couple fire drills, but that’s all I know.” The most recent causes of the fire alarms have been related to food, specifically in the kitchen with either ovens or microwaves. “They are excessive, and I do wish people would decide to cook outside of my sleeping time.”
As a result of the recurring fire alarms, the kitchens in Dotzour are now closed from 11 p.m. to 8 a.m. Some students are complaining about kitchen hours because they want to cook at night, in case they are feeling a bit peckish. The complication for most students is that they aren’t able to do laundry past a certain time due to the kitchen being closed. Macyn Olson, a freshmen resident in Dotzour Hall, said, “I do think it was a good step to close off the kitchen at a certain point because again, if it is 11 at night no one is going to want to hear you cooking. But some people do need to eat breakfast, so maybe open the kitchen at 6 a.m. instead of 8 a.m.”
In addition to closing the kitchens in the residence halls, some students believe there are ways that the residence and staff can help make the drills less frequent, or at least not throughout nighttime. “If the school’s fire system isn’t as wonky as it used to be, I think it’s up to the students now to not be stupid, and to know how to use the microwave.” said Norris. As for staff, the interviewees have said “I think talking to Student Affairs, talking to Darryl Glenn or Hannah Piechowski would be a good idea; emailing them. Maybe saying what the other students feel,” suggested Portenier. “I would appreciate it if the next drill wasn’t at midnight. Let’s have one during the day for once, that’d be nice. Variety, if we are going to have them back-to-back.” Residents say they rather have the actual drills during the day since they are going to happen regardless, and work to prevent more incidents from happening after hours.
