Tag Archives: snowpocalypse 2011

EVENT
Shuttles to Middletown Shelter

In case you have not seen the email, the WSA sends you this important message:

Dear Students,
There remains a need for volunteers at the Middletown Shelter at the nearby Middletown High School.
We have worked with the Office of Community Partnerships to offer a free shuttle service to the shelter that will be leaving Usdan at the following times:
4 pm, 5 pm, 6 pm, 7 pm, 8 pm, 9 pm
Shuttles will leave the shelter and head back to Wesleyan at the following times: 5:15 pm, 6:15 pm, 7:15 pm, 8:15 pm, 9:15 pm, 10:30 pm.
If you have any questions contact Zachary Malter ’13 (zmalter[at]wesleyan[dot]edu, 914-420-8827) or Frank Kuan(860-550-5580). Feel free to also contact the WSA with your concerns related to the power outage. Please support your community members (staff, faculty, neighbors, and fellow students) during this time of need.

Thanks and Stay Warm,
The Wesleyan Student Assembly

Hooray for community bonding time; hope to see everyone there.

Students for Staff: Support Wesleyan’s Workers in Storm Aftermath

This is Dateline Wesleyan, reporting live from the Exley Science Center, where it’s approximately ungodly-o’clock. Live from the scene, Virgil Taylor ’15 is typing the blurb below:

Salutations. You may have received a bunch of emails today, pointing out that: “One perspective which has been neglected in the administrations response to the snow storm has been that of staff, and the unique needs staff face during disasters like this one.” A whole bunch of Wesleyan students got together and talked about that, and we are starting a whole bunch of stuff to fix that. If you missed out, or were in fact there, go to this link,  join the Google Group  and join the conversation. Thanks.

More formally: Many students are unsatisfied with the lack of measures taken to provide support or accomodations to the University’s staff during the storm and ensuing outage, especially in light of the administration’s work to resume classes tomorrow. Examples:

  • Many workers’ homes have lost power and will be without power for days and potentially weeks, endangering University employees’ shelter, food supply, and other basic tenets of survival.
  • Many university employees have children who aren’t going to school (public schools were closed for the week in Meriden and other nearby areas), and now must make tough and potentially costly decisions about child care.
  • Many workers face difficult commutes thanks to gas shortages, dangerous driving conditions, and other risks. Even those who do have power, like my boss, are forced to work long hours to fill duties others cannot.

Students have already begun to take action to support Wesleyan’s staff:  the Exley supply drive is one of several actions being planned or already underway. Different groups are also coordinating the creation of a formal document addressed to the administration, outreach to the Wesleyan community (like this post) and the greater Middletown/Connecticut community staff are a part of, and working with the employees themselves to ensure that their voices are being heard. For more detailed information, get involved! Click through to see the email that inspired this action:

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…And Someone Flipped the Switch; SciLi Open All Night

Another update: power (but not internet) restored to most dorms. It remains unclear whether power will cut out again at 3am as previously scheduled.

The WSA has worked with Public Safety to ensure that SciLi will remain open all night long, and will NOT close at midnight as previously planned. Usdan will close at 2am as usual.

Public Safety will be personally staffing SciLi tonight, so if you see them, stop and say thanks for putting in the extra effort. Everyone could use a little good cheer at the moment.

Some Dorms Down… Again

Receiving word that the Butts, Nics, WestCo, and Hewitt are down again. Other buildings may be out as well. This is independent of the outage scheduled for 3-4am tomorrow morning. Public Safety has confirmed that the four buildings mentioned are down, but does not know if this is outage was planned or not. If anyone has more info about this outage please write it up in the comments section.

[Edit 10:18pm] Clark Hall is also out (confirmed).

[Edit 11:19PM crash] The power will be out for at least an hour. Cause of outage isn’t known at the moment. Fayerweather, Usdan, Exley, Senior Fauv, Frosh Fauv still have power.

[Edit 11:36PM BZOD] Power is back on in the Nics. Also, a message from Public Safety around 10 PM tonight said that the outage would be fixed in “2 hours maximum.” Probably not planned, but the issue might have at least been resolved.

Update: 200 Church Evacuated

For anyone who hasn’t heard, 200 Church has been evacuated and the building is currently locked. Rumor has it that the building has gotten somewhat chilly. Rumor also has it that the building may stay chilly for several more days. According to ResLife, all residents were notified in person; however, other sources indicate that some residents were notified by word-of-mouth, or not at all. Residents, call PSafe (860 685 2345) with any questions.

Rumor also indicates that there is now a waiting list for dorm lounges for coldpersons to sleep in, but ResLife has assured me that this is quite false. Call ResLife by 11pm tonight to have them place you in a lounge. The normal ResLife number appears to be out of commission; call PSafe and ask them to transfer you to ResLife.

Stay warm everybody, and good luck tomorrow. May the Force be with you.

A Return to Normalcy

For those still without power, now may be the perfect time to finally work on those visualization skills...

With promises to update the student body again tomorrow evening–barring any unforeseen events in the interim–Rothocalypse writes again to assuage the less-gruntled members of the student body.

Fear not, fellow WesKids, the administration has heard (some of) your cries!  Acknowledging that these “are not ideal conditions for resuming coursework,” Rothocalypse makes a convincing point: “having classes, even when assignments are not completed, is preferable to not having classes.”

Take a deep breath everyone, trust that the administration and your professors are (contrary to some popular belief) working in your best interests and trying as best they can to get back to business as usual, and start wondering if the fact that “city businesses [have] started serving customers”–as reported by the Patch–means that Titanium/The Nest will be open tomorrow.

Full text of the latest email after the jump.

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LET THERE BE (some) LIGHT

SciLi, Clark, Hirise, LoRise, Nics, Butts, Hall Atwater. Also the street lamps on Church. Report in if you have power!

EDIT BY BZOD (11:33 PM EST, 10/31/11):

Hey folks! I’m appending some updates – including a listing of what does and does not have power around Middletown – to crash‘s post, past the jump: 

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