I was sitting in class one Tuesday night, and the air outside was warm and muggy, as it normally is on an early spring night. The heat had reached highs well into the 80s that day, and the night had not brought any relief. As I opened the door to Room 210 in Lee Hall, I felt the heat rush from the room and hit my face. It was going to be a long night. As we all sat in the room, listening to the professor going on about Shakespeare, we perspired. My hands were wet with sweat as I sat there wondering why on earth it was so hot in the building with the windows open and the air conditioner on full blast.
As the professor called for a 10-minute break, a few of my fellow students and I wandered over to the other side of the room to inspect the window air conditioning unit to see what could possibly be wrong with it. The air conditioner was not the problem-it was indeed blowing cool air. The night sky was lit with stars, and the bright lights on the Drill Field shone down on the fresh green grass. The air was cooling just a bit now, so why was it so hot in the room?
We then looked at the radiator-the heater of days modern people have long passed by with the invention of the central heating and air system. The silver device gurgled and spat. Hot air slowly rose from the 100-year-old heater. “That is why it is so hot!” I shouted.
Someone needs to look at better ventilation systems for this poor building. After all, due to global warming, the air is getting hotter and hotter.
Eventually everyone will suffocate in there due to the unbearable heat and lack of ventilation. Although, since it is yet to happen, I suppose that the creaky floors will probably cave in before suffocation becomes a real hazard. I have found a few “soft spots” in the wood that I would be afraid to put my entire body weight on.
So, the poor, old, decrepit building, Lee Hall, is forgotten once again. It is forgotten when the heat needs to be turned off on a permanent basis for the spring and summer months. It was forgotten when the walls began to crack and it needs desperately to be fixed and painted. It was forgotten when the floor tiles began to come off of the floor because of water leaks. It was forgotten when the ceiling tiles were broken, torn away and lost over the years. It is forgotten always. In fact, it will probably be forgotten until the floors finally do cave in and lawsuits make the university remember.
Through all of the exterior renovations so Lee Hall will be pretty enough to face the Swalm Chemical Engineering Building, the interior remains in sad condition. And now that the weather is getting hotter, the lack of air conditioning makes having classes in Lee Hall miserable.