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THE
UILFORDIAN
Greensboro, N.C.
Volume 92, Issue 14
www.guilfordian.com
January 27, 2006
Corroded pipe bursts, affects Binford rooms
"The room smelled so had my chest hurt to breathe the air"
Beth Bass
Senior Writer
At around 7:30 p.m. on
Saturday, Jan. 14, Devin Swanson
returned to his room in Binford
hall to discover what he described
as a waterfall coming from above
the window.
The light fixture was filled
with water and dripping. Pieces of
ceiling were falling. Water was
dripping onto his roommate's
desk, which housed his laptop,
speakers, and iPod.
"My first reaction was 'Are you
serious?' As I walked in the door I
heard 'tap tap tap tap' from the
recycling bin and thought it was
some sort of animal," said first-
year Swanson, former resident of
the first floor. "Until I looked up
and saw drops coming from the
ceiling around the bed and closet."
A corroded pipe inside the wall
caused water to cascade from the
third floor to the basement. Water
soaked the carpets and students'
belongings in three rooms straight
down and seeped into a fourth
room on the first floor.
"The room smelled so bad my
chest hurt to breathe the air," said
Joshua Payne, first-year and third-
floor Binford resident. "Next thing
you know, the whole hallway
smelled like my room."
Because of the weekend and
Martin Luther King, Jr. day, affect
ed students were told by R.A.s to
stay with friends until the prob
lem was fixed. It took until
Tuesday, Jan. 17, for the carpets to
be cleaned and the water to be
removed from the dorms.
"Mechanical systems behind
walls - you don't know. You can
only imagine on a campus this big
how many we have. But we try,"
said Randy Rasmussen,
Maintenance Supervisor.
The Binford R.A.s called the
Office of Public Safety, who then
sent an officer to asses the prob
lem. The officer then called facili
ties and the water was turned off.
However, the rooms were not
cleaned or sanitized until
Tuesday.
Gerald Little, Director of
Environmental Services, returned
to work Tuesday to find an angry
message from a parent on his
voicemail.
"I think we're actually very
punctual when addressing issues
like this," said Little. "Because it
was the holiday and the staff was
off when we got the messages, it
was late."
He added that his voicemail
message lists an emergency num
ber where he can be reached on
his cell phone. He explained that
if people had listened to his entire
voicemail message, he could have
been contacted sooner. Public
Safety also has a list of mainte
nance staff cell phone numbers in
case of emergency when the usual
procedure of an R.A. filling out a
work order is insufficient,
"I was absolutely confused
about why I didn't hear about it
until Tuesday," said Little.
Some students affected by the
water were moved to rooms in
Milner and Shore, because of the
smell. Students with damaged
belongings - namely, electrical
Forum updates budget plans
Corroded pipes in Bindford break, displacing students. Continued on page 3
Vandalism targets campus cars
Sevilla Trevisani
Managing Editor
The Budget Committee held its second
open forum on Jan. 19 for the Guilford com
munity to ask questions about the proposed
2006-2007 budget.
The purpose of the meeting was to
update the community, on the latest formu
lations of the budget, give specifics on
tuition increases, salary increases, financial
aid and Strategic Long Range Plan (SLRP)
implementation.
College president Kent Chabotar estab
lished several goals for the budget commit
tee. The primary goal is to have an equi
table budget every year. Other goals
include decreasing the endowment spend
ing, increasing tuition, increasing major
maintenance and other capital projects,
and increasing pay for faculty and staff.
The objective of the committee was to bring
order to Guilford's finances.
The original projection for the 2006-2007
budget estimated a deficit of $706,000. This
is referred to as the gap. A revised and
more accurate pro
jection revealed that
the gap was closer
to $1,580,000. These
revisions included
figures relating to
the revised endow
ment distribution,
annual giving esti
mates, early college
revisions, revised
financial aid esti-
Guilford exceeds 2,575 applications this year.
Continued on page 2
Pascale Yallee
Senior Writer
Students driving Ford Mustangs may
want to invest in spare tires.
Last semester there were several reports
of slashed tires of stu
dent and faculty vehi
cles. The windows
were broken, and
items were stolen
from inside.
Reports show that
only Ford Mustangs
and Public Safety cars
were targeted. No one
gender has been tar
geted exclusively.
There is no particular
Guilford parking lot
that has been targeted
more than others.
Public Safety cars had the
windshields broken and were also the vic
tims of tire slashing. Even President Kent
Chabotar's car was vandalized and slashed.
were slashed and robbed on the same day.
Public Safety has not concluded whether or
not these incidents are coimected.
"It feels like an invasion of privacy," said
first-year Ryan Davis. "I also thought I
could trust that if I park my car on campus,
when I went back to
my car it would be in
the same condition as
I left it."
The wave of
wreckage continued
last semester when,
on numerous occa
sions, a brick was
thrown through the
window of the Public
Safety Office.
There have been
tire slashings on other
college campuses,
including NC A&T,
UNCG, Greensboro
College, and Bennett College. However,
Public Safety does not think vandalism is
Vandals target Ford Mustangs
On one occasion last semester, five cars Continued on page 2