RLSH is awake

I have received tremendous amounts of both positive and negativefeedback regarding my commentary in yesterday’s DailyCampus. I heard from students, RLSH officials and even the FireMarshall from the city of University Park. Most students seemed tolove my article, while others weren’t too amused by it. Itturns out I had some of my facts wrong, so I guess I’ve gotto swallow my pride and fix a couple of things.

According to the area coordinators for the North and South Quadsof the SMU residence halls, the Office of Risk Management conductsthe fire drills in the residence halls. RLSH officials claim theydon’t know when the fire drills are going to happen. I findthis incredibly hard to believe, but if this is their claim, thenso be it. So everything I said yesterday about fire drills reallyshould have been directed to the Office of Risk Management and thefire inspector, James S. Oravsky. Doesn’t change my opinionon the matter, just who I should direct my comments to.

This raises another qustions, though. Why does RLSH not knowwhen these drills are going to happen? If they are responsible forrunning and maintaining the residence halls, they should know abouteverything that is happening in the buildings that theyoversee.

While attending The Great Escape, I met with University ParkFire Marshall Carl McMurphy. He too had heard about my commentaryyesterday and asked if I learned anything after attending The GreatEscape.

As a matter of fact, I did learn a lot about fire safety. Iprobably learned more at The Great Escape than I did from the 6:30a.m. alarm clock awakening I received from James Oravsky. Ireiterated to Fire Marshall McMurphy that I was not against firedrills in the dorms — I just believe there is a better way toconduct them. One that provides less inconvenience to the studentbody.

As we continued talking, the kindly fire marshall told with me the averagetime for fires is 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. I think he was trying to show methat 6:30 a.m. fire drills are not as ludicrous as I maintain theyare. From my point of view, he proved my point. Fire drills shouldbe preformed earlier in the morning to more accurately replicatethe average time that fires occur.

I asked him why the fire drills couldn’t be performed at 3a.m. instead of 6:30 a.m. His response was that James Oravsky hasto work from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and that it is an inconvenience forhim to be at school earlier in the morning. It is JamesOravsky’s job to conduct fire drills; it is the studentbody’s job to go to class. No offense to James Oravsky, butwhen weighing the inconvenience of hundreds of students who arepaying an enormous amount of money to attend SMU and live in theresidence halls versus having Mr. Oravsky come in earlier in themorning to do the job he is paid to do, I think the interests ofthe money-paying students prevails.

Abraham Lincoln said that you can please some of the people allof the time and all of the people some of the time, but youcan’t please all of the people all of the time. I guess thefire drills at SMU are an excellent example of this.

I’m skeptical that RLSH doesn’t have a hand in thefire drill procedure, but if it’s really true, then Iapologize for directing my remarks towards them inyesterday’s edition. I still maintain that the method needsto be changed to minimize the distraction and nuisance they causeto the student body, and I strongly encourage more feedback fromeveryone that is affected by these procedures.

Austin Kilgore is a junior dance major and a photo editor forThe Daily Campus and Rotunda yearbook. He may be reached [email protected].