Currently, we are in what Brandeis refers to as “shoulder months.” This is a time when facilities staff are making a transition from heating to cooling. As Brandeis acknowledged in their InBrief Newsletter sent out to the community on Oct. 7, “Cooler mornings followed by warmer afternoons make maintaining temperature comfort in our facilities challenging. Even if you are in a facility with air conditioning, the campus operates on a dual system which means our systems are either in heating or cooling mode; but not both … Consequently, during these shoulder months, there will be days when your office/room temperature is not as cool or hot as you want it to be.”
Brandeis has moved the start of these shoulder months back by about two weeks due to warmer weather. However, that was not far enough. From Oct. 20 to Oct. 24, New England experienced hotter-than-normal temperatures for this late in the season. Outdoor temperatures reached as high as 76.
Temperatures inside of Skyline Hall, particularly on the upper floors, were much higher. By this time, Skyline had already been switched from cooling to heating. With the outdoor temperatures in the low seventies, temperatures in Skyline dorms reached more than 80 degrees; one student reported that their dorm reached as high as 84 degrees. Even with the window open and three fans running, my own dorm reached as high as 78. Other students have said that their rooms were even hotter. Nowhere was hotter than Skyline’s fourth floor study room. With glass on three sides, the room acts as a sort of greenhouse capable of trapping heat. It reached over 87 degrees, with even more hot air continuing to blast in from the heaters.
Despite the fact that the heat wave began on Sunday, it took Facilities until Thursday to turn the heat back off. During the four days in between when the temperature first spiked and when Facilities finally turned off the heat, Skyline residents were left with no real recourse excpet to open a window and suffer through the heat. The reason for Facilities’ slow response was not a lack of knowledge about the situation; The Hoot is aware of at least one report of the situation from as early as Sunday afternoon.
Seth Haycock-Poller ’27, a Skyline resident, said that “Brandeis is still institutionally set up as if Boston is a frigid climate in the winter … Boston just doesn’t get as cold as it used to, ESPECIALLY not early in the fall/winter; it really takes until like Jan/Feb for us to see meaningfully cold temperatures here, it hovers around the low 40s at the absolute lowest until late December.”
Brandeis describes Skyline as an eco-friendly building. It is the most modern building on campus. There are also other measures taken to make Skyline eco-friendly, such as removing paper towels from the bathrooms. However, this recent heat situation should make us wonder how deeply Brandeis is committed to keeping Skyline so eco-friendly. After all, there are far better uses of electricity than heating a study room that is already 87 degrees.
On the Campus Planning & Operations website, Brandeis sets out their target temperatures for heating and cooling. When heating is on, occupied rooms should be between 68 and 71 degrees. Of course, the temperatures in Skyline were much higher than this. These temperatures are more than just uncomfortable; they are also unsafe. The World Health Organization recommends that indoor temperatures do not rise above 80 degrees. People should not be exposed to indoor temperatures that high for long periods of time. Skyline students were exposed to those temperatures for four days.
As a Skyline resident myself, I feel like the delay in Facilities’ response was totally unacceptable. Leaving students living in rooms with extreme temperatures for four days shows a total disregard for student health and safety. I will end this article by discussing some things that Brandeis can do better during next year’s “shoulder months.” Firstly, they can start the switch from cooling to heating a little bit later. This will give the Brandeis community a little bit more time to be comfortably cool. Secondly, they can start by switching the academic buildings rather than residence halls. That way, if a heat wave like the one last week happens again, students will only have to suffer through the heat for an hour or two at a time, instead of living in it for days. Finally, they should monitor the temperature and be prepared to go back to cooling before the heat wave starts, not as it comes to an end.
