Rats, Sinkhole on Campus
Wasteland Lives At Bronx CC

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

Faculty and staff at Bronx Community College are hoping the administration will respond to their request for a health and safety committee to deal with the lack of heat in the library, rats running through the building and a sinkhole large enough to host a history seminar class.

The Chief-Leader/Adrienne Haywood-James MIND THE GAP: Faculty and staff at Bronx Community College are lobbying the administration for a safety and health committee to address heating, rodent and leak problems. Staff member Jason Davis (left) and Professional Staff Congress BCC chapter chair Marianne Pita also want the administration to tell them when the SUV-size sinkhole (to right of arrow) in front of Havemeyer Lab will be fixed.

"My entire class had hats and coats and scarves on today," said Marianne Pita, an English Professor at BCC.

The sinkhole outside Havemeyer Lab opened up in April and has only widened since. Faculty members suspect that it is also contributing to the rat and roach problem.

Feeling a Chill

The heating at the City University of New York's Bronx college has been unreliable for several years. The gym had no heat at all last week, and the library went without it for four days.

The aging physical plant of the building has also resulted in leaking pipes that sometimes drip and spill into the classrooms.

"We are not asking for immediate remediation of these problems," said Ms. Pita, the local Professional Staff Congress chapter chair, "but a venue of communication that could be established on a regular basis."

She added that members began asking for a health and safety committee about nine months ago.

BCC officials said that they had been meeting regularly with representatives of the PSC as part of the college labor-management committee and that health and safety had been an ongoing subject of discussion.

BCC Senior Vice President Mary Coleman noted that many campus buildings date back to the early 1900s. "In the short-term, steps are being taken to ensure that critically needed resources are provided to remedy immediate concerns," she said in a statement. "We continue to work with CUNY to bring new capital dollars through the city and state to address the long-term infrastructure deficiencies."

Some Movement

The labor-management committee meets for one hour twice a semester and covers issues throughout the college. Faculty members say it does not give them sufficient time to address the most-pressing safety issues.

At a regularly scheduled meeting Dec. 7, faculty members said the administration told them that if they convened a sitdown with representatives of all the campus unions to discuss the safety and health issues, the administration would look forward to attending it. "It was movement in the right direction," said Nichole McDaniel, a Biology Professor. "There is still a long ways to go."

Staff members said they hoped to find out more details of repair plans at the meeting and give input into prioritizing the most-pressing problems.

"We understand the reality of the financial situation," said Ms. Pita. "We understand that it is not an issue of cruelty that the administration won't give us heat. We just want regular communication about what is being done and when it will be done."