Ah! Nothing is better than the joy of being awoken to the sound of a 2 am fire alarm. It's thinking about times like these that makes my heart wax with nostalgia for one of the all too familiar joys of on campus living. I knew this joy all too well last semester (my first semester at AU as a transfer student), but am happier now that I live off campus and don't have to experience such thrills.
What's appalling to me is the magnitude of the suggested RHA punishment for pulling fire alarms. Granted I do understand that pulling a fire alarm presents not only an annoyance, but a clear and present danger to the individuals in the residence halls. This however in my opinion does not equate to possible dismissal from the university. Especially when all that's occurring is that the individual pulling the fire alarms just happens to have a sense of humor that many cannot appreciate.
I think what's happening is that many are allowing their anger to overrule their sense of rationality.
Over the course of the past semester, when I resided in the residence halls, I came up with my own personal solution to the fire alarms. Although I am not advocating that anyone do this, it seemed to work for me, so I relate my experience only for purposes of illustration. Upon hearing a fire alarm in the residence hall, I would always assume that it was a prank until proven otherwise. Secondly, being a science major, I knew that I could come up with a solution that would quickly prove my initial hypothesis correct or incorrect, allowing me to maximize my number of sleeping hours. This led to the creation of a simple equation to determine the probability of a fire.
The answer determined if I would exit the building or stay in bed and surrender to the arms of Morpheus once again. Logic says that given a crowded building, if there were an actual fire, it would be accompanied by all or any one the following: smoke, fire, screaming, running, and sirens. These variables were each worth twenty percent, and the total had to be at least sixty percent or greater before I would exit. The exception of course, is that fire or smoke together or by themselves was automatically enough to exit.
Given this whenever a fire alarm sounded, I would rise out of bed and first feel my door for heat. Assuming it was cool, I would crack my door to detect the presence of smoke while simultaneously listening for the screaming and running that would occur if people were exiting the building in a panic. Panic is, of course, usually the most palpable emotion in a dangerous or life threatening situation. I would also peak out my window to look and listen for the presence of sirens. Since there was never a case where all of these variables were met, I would always go back to bed, retreating to the arms of Morpheus.
The cynic in me of course always assumes worse case scenario and also plans for the probability of human error. To provide for this variable, I selected a room on the second floor. In the event that I was wrong and there was a real fire, I knew that tying three bed sheets end to end, would cover the average length of space between the second and first floors. So breaking the window, attaching these sheets to a sturdy object, climbing down, and jumping to the ground was a viable plan in the event of a worst case scenario.
The number of times that I had to do this was zero!
This is said so that my readers will understand my basic premise. There is normally a simple and non-drastic solution to most everyday problems. Instead of seeking to expel individuals for maliciously pulling fire alarms, use them to your advantage. One simple solution could be to create work study positions as over night hall monitors. It would cost much less to pay a few people around seven dollars an hour to stand "guard" overnight in the halls to deter fire alarm pullers than to spend thousands to upgrade to inked fire alarms or installation of security cameras.
Another solution would be to fine only the individuals that pull the fire alarms on the first offense and expel them from campus housing for the subsequent offense. Afterall, in a democratic society, the fear of punishment is the best deterrent to prevent individuals from committing malicious acts. With this policy implemented, my theory is that the prevalence of malicious 2 a.m. fire alarms will drastically decrease, while the willingness of residents to exit the building when fire alarms do occur will dramatically increase.
Now if there was only someone who would test this theory!!
Eve Gatewood is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, majoring in psychology.
