WSU campus not as bright as could be
WINONA, Oct. 5, 2000 -- For their safety, students at Winona State University are encouraged to stick to well-lit routes at night.
That can be difficult.
A 17-student journalism team that canvassed the whole 53-acre campus found several high-traffic pedestrian areas with lights burned out, with no bulbs in fixtures, and with inadequate lighting.
The dimmest areas:
- On the Main Street side of Memorial gym.
- At the west entrance to the Stark nursing and engineering building.
- On the northwest side of Stark Hall.
- At the parking lot between the Sheehan dorm and the Kryzsko student activities center.
- On the pedestrian mall stretching from the Phelps classroom building to the new library, the most traveled walkway on campus.
- At the new parking lot off Main Street.
On Aug. 31, a class night, the journalism students broke into four teams and crisscrossed the campus separately. They counted 399 outside light fixtures on campus and found 145 were not illuminated -- 36.3 percent. Two follow-up checks, the first a week later and the second after that, found no significant change.
Informed of the findings at a St. Paul meeting, university President Darrell Krueger was shocked into immediate silence. Then he said something would be done the next morning when he was back on campus.
Other university authorities were also shocked. True, the raw survey data, it turned out, overstated the problem -- even though the campus is indeed dim in critical places.
Dick Lande, in charge of buildings and grounds, said his janitors and groundskeepers could not have missed noticing one-third of the campus lights being out.
His chief assistant, Tony Bronk, said that the journalism students counted dozens of outdated fixtures that had been disconnected over the years when replacement lights on standards and building tops have been installed to replace them.
Many abandoned fixtures were problematic, Bronk said: "Some of the lights were too close to students' windows. The lights were beaming into their rooms."
Those are the square lights on dorm walls -- in place but disconnected.
Why haven't outdated fixtures been yanked out? Remodeling buildings would be necessary, Bronk said, calling such remodeling a needless expense.
"If you take an old and obsolete light fixture out, it leaves a hole in the wall," Bronk said. "Especially on brick buildings, a patch wouldn't match the aesthetics of the building."
Also, he said, some of the disconnected lights were never effective for security: "This is especially true for lights under overhangs that do not emit enough light for safety purposes."
Even so, the disconnected lights leave an impression of poor maintenance that detracts from a sense of security for campus people.
Twenty such antiquated fixtures remain at the Kryzsko student center at the heart of the campus.
Night janitors and security patrols keep a "heavy eye" on lights and report any that need to be replaced, Bronk said.
One day after the journalism students' data was brought to Bronk's attention, eight bad bulbs were replaced.
Bronk noted that lighting is not simply a matter of off and on: "Campus lighting is a complicated issue. Some lights are on timers, photo-sensors, switches, computers, and others are not supposed to be on at all."
Also, he said, repairs can't be done instantly.
At the Kryzsko student center, a sprawling building with 86 outside light fixtures, a bank of lights in front of the building is out because of a weak breaker. "It's the kind of problem that takes a while to get to," Bronk said.
Groundskeeper Amy Welch, who works for Bronk, cautioned against expecting a large lighting system to be in 100 percent working order at any one time. Solving the campus lighting problem would like "eliminating slippery sidewalks in winter," she said.
Good news: Six emergency blue-light kiosks, which have an alarm for students to call for help, were illuminated in every sweep of the campus by the journalism students.
Although the survey data imply that the problem is worse than it is, Winona State students are aware the lighting is insufficient.
The Student Senate and the dorm council periodically check lighting, especially around dorms. Katie Huybrecht, of the campus Student Safety Committee, said the Senate called for more lights last spring.
For years, Huybrecht said, the Senate has asked the city for more lights on the campus perimeter -- like in the particularly dim long block of Main Street along Memorial gym.
"The city always says it doesn't have the budget," Huybrecht said.
Devin Johnson, president of the Student Senate, said there is another obstacle. People living on the side of the street where the lighting would be placed need to give permission -- and accept a tax increase, he said. How much? "Like a couple bucks a year," Johnson said. Although $2 isn't much, people don't cotton naturally to more taxes.
City Engineer Steve McBurney said the city typically installs lighting at street intersections. Mid-block lighting is installed only for special needs, he said.
McBurney promised to check the Main Street situation.
He noted that the university could always add lights on campus property to illuminate Main Street outside Memorial Hall.
At the new parking lot west of Memorial, 22 standards are without lights.
Fixtures haven't been installed because they're on back order, said buildings and grounds chief Dick Lande.
Trina Cook, who coordinated aspects of the parking lot project, said the decision to build the lot came at the last-minute after classes let out in May. Cook said the lights were ordered three months ahead of the projected installation date. But the order went to a German company, and the delivery date was pushed back to Nov. 20. When fall classes began, the lot was opened for parking -- even without lights.
John Ferden, whose responsibilities include on-campus housing, said the university safety committee headed by Joanne Roscyzk has been concerned about a pedestrian corridor between Somsen and Phelps Hall -- an area that students dub "the dark alley." The Rosczyk committee hasn't done much. Roscyzk doesn't talk with reporters. Ferden said the committee looked into lighting problems a couple years ago but instead "has been concerned about fires, chemical spills and bomb threats," he said.
Ferden speculated that a great number of other campus projects may have sidetracked maintenance crews from lighting in recent weeks. These projects include new fountains and landscaping -- nice but hardly critical for student safety at night.
Generally only one maintenance person, Kevin Kimmel of the yard crew, changes lights.
Kimmel traverses the campus in what everybody calls the Purple Machine. The gangly vehicle, which moves only about as fast as you can walk, has a 48-foot boom. The machine, which also is used to film varsity football practices and games, was purchased from Mankato State University, which had used it for 21 years.
Nobody likes the Purple Machine for changing bulbs, partly because it gets around so slowly, but the price was right. To its credit, says Kimmel, the machine is reliable. It hardly ever breaks down.
Lande recognizes a faster machine for replacing bad bulbs is needed. Before the Purple Machine, a 1965-vintage boom truck was used, but, being old, it broke down often and wasn't worth fixing any more, Lande said.
On Lande's budget wish list is a van with an attachable boom. "It would do double duty," he said. "It could be used for moving equipment and then the boom could be attached for other things."
In the meantime, said Bronk. "We're doing the best we can with the equipment we've got."
Typically Kimmel takes the Purple Machine out twice a week to change bulbs.
While nobody would expect the university to have bulb-replacing crews on 24-hour call, Joe Reed, manager of the Kryzsko student activities center, said work orders sometimes pile up when maintenance crews are busy.
A paper trail is created when someone creates a work order to replace a bulb.
Among people along the paper trail is Shirley Mounce, who heads daytime campus security. Every morning Mounce checks her in-box for reports from overnight security guards and janitors, including requests to fix lights. Mounce fills out a work order, itemizes the deficiencies, signs the form, and faxes it to Mary Haeussinger, a secretary at the university's maintenance headquarters. Haeussinger calls Mounce to confirm the report has arrived and then dispatches the work orders to the appropriate maintenance people. Work orders to fix bad lights go to Tony Bronk, who is responsible for campus grounds. Bronk passes the work orders on to Kevin Kimmel
Bronk said he usually sends Kimmel out whenever there is a bad light reported but sometimes bunches the work orders. "It's a question of priorities," he said. "Not everything can be done at once."
In her experience, Mounce said, problems with security lights are always a high priority.
Even so, confusion exists about reporting procedures. As a result, there can be a lot of finger-pointing when things aren't going right, as when the teams of journalism students began counting burned-out bulbs. So who's responsible? Ask Tony Bronk, and he will tell you that janitors and night-security patrols should be reporting burned-out lights. Ask security guards, and some don't know reporting procedures.
Incredibly, some people directly involved in security were unaware that so many lights were out when the journalists did their check. Mounce said she had not processed a single work order for bad lights since fall classes began. Don Walski, chief of campus security, was unaware of any deficiency reports from his night guards.
Whatever the truth about the level of inadequacy in campus lighting, everyone agrees for the record that night security need improving.
Why is lighting a problem? The student journalists who amassed the data about lighting identified these problems:
- Staffing shortage. The campus maintenance staff has been cut back over the years and simultaneously stretched thinner to care for new buildings like the library and the Stark nursing and engineering hall. With fewer people to do more work, short cuts get taken, some work is left undone.
- Repair priorities. Despite claims that replacing burned-out lights is a priority, it doesn't always get done right away.
- Unclear procedures. Although some people in the reporting chain to get bad bulbs replaced believe the procedures are clear, many folks, including night security guards, don't have a clue.
- Inadequate equipment. The Purple Machine, which strains at 5 mph, can't get from one end of campus to the other to get assigned projects done efficiently.
- Tempermental fixtures. Many fixtures themselves are fragile. Lights go out for all kinds of reasons, even ground vibrations.
- Greenification: Extensive campus landscaping has exacerbated lighting problems. Creating and tending the landscaping takes staff time from other duties, like maintaining lights, and thus detracts from student confidence that the campus is a safe place.
- City largesse. The city has ignored repeated student requests for better perimeter lighting.
How good are the lamps themselves? Rob Polachek, a Winona electrical contractor, said the high-pressure sodium lights on campus are "top of the line." They're efficient, low-cost to operate and require little maintenance, he said.
Some fixtures, though, are under-engineered and overheat. When too hot, they shut themselves off to cool. It's dark in the meantime.
Some lights have fuses, a technology that's especially vulnerable.
Some lights, particularly those mounted in stone pillars, don't respond to vibrations well. Snow-plow crews said some lights go out just from the vibrations of their equipment. If a plow hits a standard, the light goes out for sure.
Polachek lays the problem not so much with the lights as the wiring.
An alternative, he said, would be metal halide lamps, like those above the football field, which offer more illumination per bulb -- as well as white light, rather than the tinted less bright tones of other campus lamps.
The night security problem has been exacerbated by extensive campus landscaping, part of President Darrell Krueger's greenification initiatives. Trees, shrubs and fountain plantings have created darkish nooks that require lighting from special angles -- and the lighting has never been installed.
The lighting problem is also one of perceptions.
Students do not have confidence in night-time security. In a telling example of student concern about safety, a false rumor spread through campus the first week of classes that a dozen rapes had occurred in the late summer. Although a preposterous number, the rumor was widely believed. Finally a university vice president, Cal Winbush, took the unusual step of issuing a campus-wide denial. Even then, the rumor died hard. Parents who heard Winbush's denial then deluged city Police Chief Frank Pomeroy about widely believed spin-off rumors that the university and the cops were in complicity to cover up.
Even continuing assurances about Winona as a safe community, part of the university's recruiting mantra, don't dispel student jitters about safety.
Strange as it may seem considering the student concern, many students, including women, are out alone at night, coming and going to classes, the library, and the gym. Some jog alone late into the night.
The campus itself has 1,881 students living in dorms, including the off-campus Lourdes and Loretto dorms. Probably twice that many, roughly another 3,700, live within walking distance of campus and walk through poorly lit areas
What can be done?
- Perceptions: An easy, low-cost measure to improve student perceptions about night security would be to mark fixtures that are operated by timers and photo sensors. Bronk himself suggested signs so people would know that lights are just switched off, not that they're broken. That would help allay student concern that the university is negligent about maintaining lights.
Also, broken lights could be marked. This would head off possible duplicate reporting of burned-out lamps. Although duplicate reporting is hardly a problem now, it could conceivably clog up the reporting channels.
- Training. Students, faculty and everyone else on campus needs to learn what to do when they spot a burned-out light. The university should promulgate reporting instructions.
Individual students and other campus people can help. Said Bronk: "Either e-mail or directly call to the Physical Plant. E-mailing is best so you have a record of it and we do too."
The number and address:
- Equipment. Retire the Purple Machine. With a 53-acre campus, repair crews need something that gets around faster than 5 mph.
- City role: Keep pressure on city officials, particularly City Council member Chuck Arnold, who represents the Winona State ward, to install more lighting on city streets on the campus perimeter.
- Budget: Make lighting a campus budget priority with an eye to less vibration-sensitive structures and white-light fixtures.
In the journalism students' investigation, campus people were open in discussing lighting problems. Even among buildings and grounds people, who might be expected to be defensive, only one employee clammed up.
Everyone else, from the university president on down, were concerned about the journalism students' findings and agreed the campus should be brighter at night.
Tony Bronk, the grounds supervisor, took several of the j-students on a campus tour in his six-wheel Gator tractor to sort through their data on the 399 light fixtures in their database.
All agreed on a well-lit campus as an important goal.
About the journalism students' investigation, Joe Reed at Kryzsko Commons said: "Good light may come of it."
"No pun intended," he added.
