Recent measures taken by the new Campus Fire Safety Department have aroused scrutiny and anger from students. The department, which was created last year, has collected a total of $40,700 in fines since Sept. 2, 2006. One fire safety inspection led to the arrest of a female sophomore in WestCo for possession of half an ounce of marijuana, as well as drug paraphernalia. The extensive fines, the arrest, and the arrested student’s anonymous account of the events on the student blog Wesleying have spurred questions about the department’s motives.
“We’re behind the times when it comes to fire safety,” said Safety Officer Christine Cruz, who is one of Campus Fire Safety’s two officers. “We were below what our peer schools were doing for fines and our peer schools who raised the fines have begun to see a decrease in violations.”
In an attempt to end ‘reactive’ attitudes towards fire hazards, Campus Fire Safety has decided to raise the fines for good in order to match the “proactive” practices of peer schools.
“This is not a temporary thing,” Cruz said.
In 2001, the Argus reported that the Office of Student Life Facilities collected roughly $10,000 per semester in violation of fire safety rules. At that time, individual violations resulted in a $50 fine.
“Fire safety seems unreceptive to an appeals process and to lowering punitive fines,” said Jorge Soto ’09, a member of the WSA’s Student Affairs Committee. “They hold that Wesleyan has some of the lowest fines [among peer institutions], but from our research this is not true.
According to Cruz, the $40,700 collected thus far by the department has been allocated towards a fund for fire safety education. While Fire Safety has already planned a $5,000 fire extinguisher module that will allow students to practice putting out fires, the bulk of the programs are still in the planning stage. One idea is a ”dorm burn“ in the middle of campus.
”We want to set fire to a model dorm to show how the fine-able items such as candles, cigarettes, and tapestries make a fire react or how they start fires,“ Cruz said.
Some students expressed distaste when they heard about the idea.
”I think that’s really stupid and ridiculous,“ said Hunter Craighill ’09. ”Obviously people understand that tapestries can burn.“
In response to student discontent, the WSA has also expressed concerns and has been discussing the matter with Physical Plant officials.
”I think that the fines are too high,“ said WSA President Zach Kolodin ’07. ”Some students are charged in incidents where the fine is questionable, and so we are trying to establish an appeals process.“
While the WestCo resident’s arrest made news around campus, several other students have also complained about the inspection procedures. When Craighill left over break, he made sure to lock all his windows and his door.
”I’m usually pretty paranoid about locking things,“ he said.
Yet when he returned, not only could he not find the $600 flat-screen TV that his father had given him for his birthday, he also saw a $100 fire safety fine on his desk.
”It seems clear to me that my TV is gone either because of someone with a key or because of the negligence of someone with a key,“ he said.
While it is not clear who took Craighill’s belongings, Max Horwich ’08 thinks he knows who took his—right now, he claims that Fire Safety is using his lamp in a sort of exhibition.
”It’s a 60 watt light bulb in a frame that looks like a fireplace,“ he said. ”Though they admit that it is not against the fire code, they took it and are showing it around to the ResLife people because they think someone having a fireplace in their dorms is ironic. They’re saying it’s an example of something that is dangerous but not a violation of the fire code.“
Cruz understands that there are certain issues to be taken care of.
”I definitely think that there’s room for improvement, not in the inspection process, but with the communication process,“ she said.
Cruz stressed that she was following the rules.
”We’re doing what we’re told to do,“ she said. ”This is part of our jobs now.“
”The consensus is that this is more the issue of the school needing money, or wanting to appear ‘proactive’ about fire safety more so than actually wanting to prevent fires,“ Horwich said.
Craighill agrees that the administration seems to be behind these efforts.
”It’s really upsetting that, I think, the administration is trying to establish their control,“ Craighill said. ”There’s not this much dialogue between us and them, it’s more like, ‘Listen to us or you’re fucked.’“
Speaking about the arrest in WestCo, Cruz, along with Stacy Baldwin, a construction project assistant for Physical Plant, claim to have seen marijuana on the WestCo sophomore’s desk. Cruz had warned the student twice before about having a tapestry over a light fixture and had come to see if the tapestry had been removed. When the student opened the door, Cruz says she noticed marijuana on the desk as well as another illegal tapestry on the wall.
Following fire safety guidelines, the officers reported a marijuana violation to Public Safety, who arrived while the student was in class and subsequently alerted Middletown Police after finding the drug.
Overall, many students feel manipulated by the increase in fines.