Brown and White Vol. 101 no. 13

              the brown and white lehigh university's student newspaper founded in 1894 vol 101 no 13 friday october 29 1993 all the lehigh news first false fire alarms become nuisance hazard by chris lemmon news writer the problem of false fire alarms being pulled in residence halls has plagued the university for several years and this fall has been no differ ent a prime example of fire control system abuse occurred on oct 15 when tliree separate false alarms were pulled in different residence halls all perpetrators were found and charged the alarms are mostly set off by residents as a joke with residents using everything from aerosol can torches to the most recent smoke bombs the problem seems to be mostly confined to the freshmen halls and treated by the residents as a tolerated nuisance with the brunt of the alarms be ing pulled in freshmen dorms some residents on those halls believe that the perpetrators may be people who are not necessarily freshmen we have only had one false alarm here and it was pulled by some fraternity guys who came off the hill mary gillette 97 a resi dent of mcclintic-marshall house said beyond the issue of placing blame false alarms disturb many people and students fell they diminish the effectiveness of the fire alarm sys tem thc punishments for those who are caught in the act of pulling a false alarm are handled on two levels first the acts are violations of the lehigh and bethlehem fire codes as well as the general provision for student occupancy , which each resi dent signs when he or she accepts their room assignment the violation carries a penalty of a fine from the fire department the disciplinary action on the part of lehigh can range anywhere from disciplinary probation to expulsion according to students and hall directors the biggest problem that results from these false alarms is that many students begin to expect them and start to take fire alarms less seri ously keith fisher 97 said he plans his schedule to anticipate them it's become expected that a fire alarm will go off the night before big projects are due fisher said many students also complain that the large number of false alarms af fects their well-being since they need to go outside for each alarm students must remain outside until the lehigh police have come to the residence hall checked that there is no fire and shut off the fire alarm according to students there have also been a few occasions when fire alarms were falsely set off multiple times within one night and each one must be handled as if it were a real fire residents claim this takes away from residents sleep time which creates the possibility of residents missing classes the next morning i need sleep ... i can't get sleep because of all of these fire alarms joseph guterl 97 a dravo resident said joe rossi assistant hall director of dravo house feels that the nui sance of the false alarms to the stu dents creates a hazard because of the frequency of false alarms a real fire could cause serious problems rossi said in order to keep students from smoke-free halls damage top rha list by dorsey montenecourt news writer the residence hall association has dis cussed the revamping of the university hous ing lottery system along with the installation of smoke-free dormitories and damage control in residence halls the rha has in the past year made modi fications to its lottery system to quell some disputes as of last spring non-greek undergraduate students who have moved off campus were allowed to re-enter the lottery system with no penalty the rha hopes that other changes they are planning will make on-campus housing an attractive option for students who have had bad experiences off campus with crime rent law suits and ethically questionable landlords geoff haskell the faculty adviser of the rha and residential life programs coordina tor has many ideas which will require the support of the students and committees in the rha and residence halls alike some of haskell's proposed changes that should be implemented by the fall 1 994 are revised smoking damage control and postering policies in order to revise the smoking policy the rha first plans to distribute questionnaires which will survey student reactions to the current smoking policy if there is enough interest haskell feels that students can expect to live on smoke-free halls next year if they want andriaczerny 97,aresidentinmcclintic marshall house feels smoke-free dorms will inconvenience those who do smoke maybe they should appoint one of the lounges for smoking to give people a social place to smoke czerny said in addition to smoking the rha intends to introduce incentive programs to reduce the amount of damage on the halls these ideas include rewards for the halls with the least amount of damage in conjunction with the award program the power of one following their dramatic fourth quarter comeback last week scott semptimphelter hopes to lead lehigh to their first ever win over holy cross senate polls to decide actions by rebecca murphey news writer the student senate decided tues day to poll students on the issues regarding the choice of the 1994 graduation speaker and the possible extension of library hours heather zaslansky 94 senate president reiterated her need for feedback from the constituencies re garding possible later library hours zaslansky will meet with the provost on nov 10 to discuss the issue she is insisting that all senators provide her with documentation of their constituents feelings on the matter by the next senate meeting so she can present this information to the provost and push for the later hours this is something that we have been pushing for since i was a fresh man zaslansky said we give money to the library system , i think if students want to look something up at 1 : 30 in the morning they should be able to also on the agenda was the dis cussion of the selection process of this year's graduation speaker joyce brothers senate vice-president ed monahan 95 asked that senior sen ate members poll their constituen cies about the choice of brothers as the keynote speaker at graduation he said this could be done in conjunction with the polls they are conducting about later library hours please see fire page 6 please see rha page 6 please see senate page 6 hsre mm footbau 2 ' â– ^"^â– â– â– ' swimming preview 23 haloween houses see more in lifestyle page 10