Some time during the strike, someone who perhaps wants to remain anonymous sent me this picture with the following text:
Symbolic of something, perhaps, is the attached photo taken last week. The site was a fifth floor room (509F) in Mark-Jefferson. The darkened surface area of the cart represents water that had leaked in and collected there. Particularly striking is the still wet monitor that reveals a weeping image. I have reason to believe that two administrators, one of whom was the interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, had the opportunity to observe this room and others like it last year.
I realize the point here is the poor state of conditions of Mark-Jefferson (and a bunch of other buildings on campus), but I have to say: I’m not sure you want to mess with a weeping computer. That seems way more powerful than, say, an image of the Virgin Mary grilled into a sandwich.
I taught in Mark Jefferson the summer after the Pray-Harrold fire. One day, in the middle of class, a vent in the ceiling started to pour water. I don’t mean trickle, I mean it spewed a spout of water that quickly began to flood the room. My flabbergasted students and I had to flee. It took a while to figure out who to notify, and when the maintenance folk came, they seemed very sedate about the whole incident saying something like, “yeah, this happens all the time.”
In Pray Harrold there have now been two instances where students of mine have been injured because of the delapidated conditions there. In a lecture hall class, a student was thrown to the floor when her seat collapsed beneath her. The broken chair is probably still hanging there in the front row.
In a small classroom on the third floor one of the racks on the wall in the back of the room had broken off (haven’t most of them?) leaving a piece of sharp metal sticking out from the wall. A student stood up from his desk in the back row, rammed his head against the sharp metal sticking out from the wall, and had to get seven stitches! I kid you not.
Anybody been stuck on a Pray-Harrold elevator?
–Annette
Oh, I am not hesitant to identify myself as being in possession of the weeping computer. What benefits might accrue to one with a special route to a weeping computer. For a slight offering, I’d be happy to permit access to this wonder of wonders (touching it is a bit pricey, however). I also can offer a tour that includes the Mark-Jefferson wastebasket is which a strange liquid mysteriously accumulates despite our best ministrations. Chosen students will soon begin bottling the marvelous substance and hope to thereby cover their tuition costs by distributing it to those affiliated with universities in the unfortunate position of lacking such a gift. Some say it is the tears of the great Mark Jefferson himself. Others speculate it to be from a higher source about which only few can know–an EMU administrator who actually respects students and faculty?
Dennis J. Delprato
Department of Psychology
I’ve tried riding the PH elevators twice.. both times they dropped about a foot then the door opened and I promptly got off and took the stairs! Although I believe they finally did some major overhaul on them so they should be better.