There was a fabulous “Other Voices” article in the Ann Arbor News today, written by Social Work professor D. Mark Ragg:
“EMU has a hard-working, respected side – but it’s a quiet one“
… The first EMU is now well-known in the media. This is the EMU that carefully packages information to mislead the public about priorities. Administrators continually make decisions that undermine the university’s mission and then package information to avoid responsibility. The recent cover-up is the most egregious but not the most recent example of such behavior. Most readers are aware of the President’s House and spending more than $100,000 on unsold football tickets to retain NCAA Division 1 status. It appears that this EMU is most invested in the appearance of a good university though buildings, athletics and park-like settings. Issues of student safety and learning environment seem to be a second priority.
There is another EMU. This EMU is comprised of educators and students who work closely together to achieve student goals. EMU does an excellent job preparing students for professional positions, careers and for further education. Students most often have a real professor working with them who sets student education as a higher priority than research and publication. …
Fabulous?
This is a “Tale of Two Cities” revisited, or maybe more appropriately, “The Matrix.” An excellent metaphorical strategy to make the point that “we” are the university (faculty, students and staff) not “them.” Thanks for this, Mark.
Yes, I think ‘fabulous’ is an appropriate adjective for that article. I think that it captures the way many of us feel about EMU. We. are here meeting our classes, holding office hours, monitoring exams (like right this minute) in a stifling classroom in Pray Harrold. We have to close the doors because it sounds like there is a class in auto body repair somewhere in this building….therefore, with 40 people ‘sweating out’ an exam, my guess is it will be 90 before we leave. That these guys have studied for this exam, have shown up bright eyed and bushy tailed and are not complaining about the close to unbearable conditions is wonderful–and they are in good spirits. If this isn’t the fabulous side to this university, I don’t know what is.
I think that classroom is a perfect meeting environment for all administration meetings that are currently held in Welch.
Wood paneling and A/C just stagnates the mind. The heat boosts metabolism and thus output.
I agree, especially now that I realize that what sounded like an auto body repair class is work people ripping ASBESTOS out of the room just down the hall. They have shredded plastic hanging over the door, to protect us, I suppose. I definitely think the suits should be over here. I mean talk about hard working–even the postman doesn’t have to brave asbestos!!!!
The Facts, just the Facts. Increase based only on operating budget, not total budget. Therefore, the big increase is $129,000.
You can see them working? Usually that type of removal is an outer barrier, a sealed inner barrier, and negative air flow/ filtering via one of several solutions. You should see air sampling stations outside the area to show no external contamination so that people have a harder time making spurious lawsuits.
If this doesn’t sound familiar upon closer inspection there are external safety resources to rely upon to make sure it’s properly done- but this stuff is usually contracted out to specialists so your exposure from this source had better be zilch.
The asbestos from the 12″ of vermiculite in your attic, that’s a different story.
-Brian-of-a-varied-work-history-during-college (just ask me to pick up a dime with a forklift sometime…)
They had fans blowing the air out through a large plastic pipe and they had strips of plastic hanging over the door. There was no monitoring. There was really nothing to protect the students in the hallway and I don’t see how it could not have been getting into the ventilation system. Somebody please tell me I am wrong. I had 80 students taking tests not 20 feet away.
If you are filtering air, it has to go somewhere
As long as there’s the right filter at the other end of the tube you saw, the blower can/should be making a negative pressure in the room- so outside air goes in, anything going out gets filtered on the way out.
If it’s a small enough area being worked on, it can be all bagged up and sealed as you work on it, too, so no need to seal the room IIRC (I don’t know all the rules), and the negative airflow in/filtered output is yet another level of safeguard. There are tons-o-rules for this.
It should be fine, all institutions know about this (I know, I know), and most physical plants just contract it out to specialty companies who don’t fool around. If you are worried a couple phone calls should help you out readily enough. Or lurk and grab one of the guys and have the right tone.
I have been checking around and hopefully a reputable group of professionals was hired by EMU. Although, why they couldn’t have waited until semester break beats me. Anyway, it’s too late now. The good news is that the less asbestos we are exposed to on a daily basis (in Pray Harrold) the better. Thanks for the reassurances Brian….it’s just…you know, you know. And now we can return to the regularly scheduled programming.
They hired the Soprano’s.
Lol!
That’s a good one, Alum.
p.s. When I saw the giant tubes in the PH hallway I knew I could come here for all the details. Better than my students’ theories: since it looks just like a scene from ET, we were speculating about the Pray Harrold zombies or mutant wall slugs needing to be taken away by guys in space suits who would then fly away in black helecopters. It’s 90 degrees the classroom–we’re allowed to get a bit punchy.
oops. that’s helicopters. I need more coffee.
I’m sorry but I do not find this funny at all. It takes 1 particle of asbestos to start lung destruction. I had a room full of young college kids with their entire lives in front of them. No matter how professional or skilled the company hired is (and I still suspect that alum is close–either the sopranos or their competition, i.e., “a deal you can’t refuse”), the people who arranged for this ‘job’, owed the summer semester students the consideration to wait until the two weeks that the classrooms will not be used during August. Do you really want your kids sitting in a room in a building with a closed ventilation system with asbestos removal going on 10 steps away?
That’s the way they remove asbestos. I’ve seen it done several times in public and private buildings. They monitor the air. Also – the asbestos must have been friable to have to remove it. Which means it would have done more harm to leave it in place. If asbestos is covered and in good shape the best policy is not to remove it.
And the guarantee that a particle doesn’t escape? I realize there are no guarantees but wouldn’t common sense suggest that it be done sometime when the building wasn’t full of students? And, I agree better to get it out…although I’m one of those who advocates leveling Pray Harrold…..a fair number of us would fit into the 17,000 sq foot President’s house. No one’s using it.
I think this is one of those situations (that seem to come up a lot) where some communication/ data sharing beforehand would save a lot of guessing and worry and concern over what was going on.
First off, anyone who watched the last season of The Saprano’s would get the joke about them and asbestos removal.
Second, I think this actually the best time to be doing this stuff, better than the break. Between summer and fall terms, there’s lots of students around, lots of faculty meetings/businesses to attend to, etc. I think this is probably the quietest time of the year on campus.
And third, suppose you did get notification that they were going to do this work: what difference would it have really made, anyway?
Unless there is a certified asbestos contractor out there who can visit this site and say that there’s something wrong here, then I’m going to feel just fine about this work. I think Alum is right: the fact that they are removing it at all (as opposed to just letting it sit there like the rest of the asbestos in buildings of the Pray-Harrold era) makes me think that the powers that be are trying to get out ahead of the curve on a problem.
While asbestos is very dangerous the our head engineer told me that radon gas is the asbestos of the new century, however he predicts that vinyl siding and all the other crap they put in and on buildings (caulk etc.) is just as bad. In the next 20 years we’ll all be removing vinyl siding because of the gas it gives off.
Steve.
First, the Sopranos joke would be funnier if it wouldn’t surprise anyone to find that we *did* contract with someone like that who disposes of toxic materials like that.
Second, there ia a two-week window between the end of summer and beginning of Fall. Perhaps it would have been better to do it when only the lowly staff is around; we’re hardly worth mentioning or consideration, so why be concerned.
Third, I’m sure that if the people teaching next, to, above, or below the room knew about it, they *might* have been able to ask for a room change (Heaven forbid management offer such a painfully obvious thing in the first place. It would smack of thinking of employees as something other than fungible assets and students as something other than “income.”)
And, what the hell, if it really is particulate asbestos being pumped through the stairwells of PH, it won’t result in cancer cases until long after the current decision-makers are gone.
OTOH, it may be easy to trace liability. When the question gets asked “Who would be stupid enough to hire someone to pump asbestos dust into a stairwell?” I’m sure we’ll have plenty more black eyes that, to badly mix a metaphor, point right back to EMU.
I love teaching in Pray-Harrold! (not really) Yesterday, my class sat in a computer lab that was probably 85+ degrees. We could deal with the heat, but the asbestos removal process directly across the hall from my classroom with the noise of fans, huge plastic tubes making strange noises, banging and clanging of large objects, muffled thuds and other weird noises made having a class discussion rather difficult.
This is not to say that I’m not happy that the asbestos is being removed, but gosh, it’s hard to teach in these situations.
OK guys, I teach in PH but I haven’t seen these tubes on the floors where I normally hang out. Where exactly is this going on?
Yes, I think it would have been common courtesy for someone from physical plant or somewhere in the admin to notify us that this work is occurring, as well as when it is expected to be completed. For those who are trying to teach (or learn) nearby, it would be nice to know if this is going to be a lengthy process, or just a couple of days worth of inconvenience. It hardly makes sense to go through the whole rigmarole to request a room change (which, like everything at EMU requires bureaucratic hoop jumping) if the disturbance is only going to last for a few days.
If someone had taken the time to give us a head’s up on this process, they could probably also have included some general info about any safety concerns or precautions. This would have allayed some of the fears voiced here on this topic. This assumes (dangerous word) that we’d believe them, but that is another issue. At least they could say they told us.
It just goes back to basic courtesy – which, I think, the admin needs to demonstrate to the faculty and students in more overt ways if they hope to regain some trust.
Why don’t you call the Physical Plant?
Alum, I may well do that. But I think you missed my point, which was that folks in the physical plant or the CAS for that matter, COULD have been pro-active about letting those of us who teach in this building every day know what was going on. Doing that would have taken very little effort and yet would have put to rest all sorts of rumors and fears, not to mention helping people know how to deal with the noise issue (ie, do people really need to switch classrooms, and if so, for how long?).
CAS Dean’s office was unaware of this work.
Isn’t the Interim Dean of CAS the so called “building administrator” for PrayHarrold? The building administrator is in charge of all things done by physical plant in a given building….or at least that’s what the folks in physical plant used to say, before their bosses were fired in January 2007. Who knows what they claim to be true now. How, aginghippie, could the building administrator be out of the loop on this issue? Surely the noise of the removal work was a predictable disruption of the teaching environment, if nothing else, and the building administrator/Dean’s Office would have been informed and would have informed all instructors? Did physical plant really do this without consulting with the building administrator? Or was the building administrator out to lunch? Strange way to run a university – no advance notice about something likely to be controversial and disruptive, and no evidence of a qualified, licensed, certified firm being hired for the work.
A former brother in law of mine used to do this kind of work, ran a small company doing it. He did it by the books, with no health and safety shortcuts. His bids were higher than his rivals. He didn’t get the contracts that low bidders got. He insisted that his workers follow procedures to the letter, and his jobs necessarily ran slower. His competitors went thru the motions of compliance without the substance, and they made money hand over foot.
Who in EMUTalk land really is 100% confident that EMU in this case did the bid right, verified that the contractor’s procedures, etc., were up to par and that all the contractors’ employees had completed the rather lengthy training for this work; and can also believe that EMU officials, while having nothing to hide about this removal process, choose for some unknown reason to have the work done with no prior notice to any one who uses PrayHarrold on a regular basis? Maybe EMU has some new administrator who wants everything done perfectly right, but humbly wishes to be sure that he or she is NOT given any credit for doing things perfectly right?
Mark’s comments are right on. Academic leadership at EMU can be largely characterized as “nice enough guy, but unwilling to fight (or unaware that he should fight) for faculty and students.”
Frankly, this faculty member’s opinion is that academic leadership is too supine in the presence of non-academic divisions.
When I was having my temper tantrum in the Dean’s office following the classes which were trying to take exams during the asbestos removal (and I don’t even want to dwell on what seemed to me to be a very cavalier attitude on the part of the people doing the work), someone from Physical Plant told me in an incredibly patronizing way (you know the way car guys talk to women) that a ‘professional firm’ had been hired. Smirk, smirk, honey, just take my word for it. He was in the Deans office due to the complaints of many in the building and the fact that no one in the Deans office knew anything about it. Someone said the Dean was in Germany but I could swear I saw his door swing closed as soon as it became apparent that there was a raving lunatic in the vicinity (me). The people taking classes and working in that building deserved to have a CHOICE as to whether they wanted to be in there during that time. Do the guys in Physical Plant run this place? What are their qualifications? That would explain a lot.
Actually, I can say with some confidence that on Monday, the dean probably was in Germany– or at least out of PH. That’s not a reason for the Physical Plant to provided some basic information to that office, of course.
This was a job concocted by the Physical Plant. Physical Plant is an entity unto itself–no-bid contracts, work done (or not) according to mysterious ways.
When Physical Plant says it’s best to do work in summer because no one’s around, they must mean administrators aren’t around–’cuz faculty, staff, and students sure are.
On the Interim Dean’s vacation schedule, I certainly don’t know its exact dates, though I had been told in the context of another matter that he’d be back on the job before August 1.
But as one senior administrator friend of mine said to me yesterday, about the asbestos screw up and the CAS’s Dean’s office non-communication, “it wouldn’t have mattered if Hoft was in town or not. He is never an advocate for his college and he is incapable of communicating. When he is on vacation is the same was when he’s not on vacation.”