College Cuts Budgets While Energy is not Used Properly

To the Editors:

Question: How many Burton residents does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Answer: None. Burton residents don’t need light bulbs because the fires of hell illuminate their rooms.
This is one of many light bulb jokes circulating around campus, the butt of which typically poke fun at the overheating of the dorms. It is necessary for most people living in dorms to keep their windows open at one point or another during winter, simply because they would suffer from heatstroke if they did not. Other academic buildings suffer the same problem, with the Language Lab in Peters reaching a scorching 98 degrees-F when the heat was first turned on before fall break (and, once turned on, could not be turned off). Despite the dedicated work of the staff in Facilities, indoor temperature control is ridiculous enough to have become a campus joke.
This problem is significant, and not only because indoor air temperature is something we ought to be able to control in this 21st century. A tremendous amount of energy is being wasted, and a hefty sum of money as well, to generate and transfer heat to rooms and buildings that do not need it. Meanwhile, the budget must be cinched as tightly as possible; departments have been told by Nancy Dye to cut their operating budgets by 20 percent. And while the announcement of layoffs still reverberates around campus, I wonder how many of these cuts would be unnecessary if the administration would initiate a concerted and creative effort to rethink our heating and energy use on campus.
Naturally, an initial investment would be required for such a project. But I can think of no other investment in these economic times that could have as much potential for future savings as a reworking and rewiring of energy, including projects such as end-use monitoring, high-efficiency retrofits, and perhaps more importantly, a policy guiding all new construction and major renovations towards greater efficiency.
Rather than a committee of certain administrators addressing energy use, we ought to have a broader constituency. The staff who clean the bathrooms, who replace the light bulbs — and students as well who spend the greatest amount of time living within the buildings — should be able to come together and address problems and suggest solutions. Why is the new science center, and Peters as well, air conditioned in warm weather to meat-locker temperatures? Why did the atrium lights in the science center remain on 24-7 the entire Thanksgiving break? Who is there to go to when I notice an energy problem on campus?
Potentially we could prevent another tuition hike and give money to struggling programs through our savings. As for the layoffs, do we really value malfunctioning and wasteful energy systems over jobs and the services they provide to students?
I urge the administration to initiate a novel, imaginative and broadly-based effort to address energy savings on campus.

–Michael E. Murray,
College junior