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Crisis and Its Impact on CMC

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January 18, 2001

To CMC Students, Faculty, Staff and Parents:

The College's plans for dealing with California's energy crisis were formulated under the then-reasonable assumption that winter power outages would occur only during a specific, predictable and brief timeframe. Obviously, this is no longer the case.

I have been working with the senior officers of the College to develop a plan that will help us during these trying and difficult times. The following plan, effective immediately and through Monday morning, January 22nd, focuses foremost on the health and safety of our students, and on minimizing disruption of our academic programs. We will re-assess the situation next week.

Please take a few moments to review the information below. In addition, members of the senior staff and I will be in Collins Dining Hall at 7:45 p.m. today for a briefing on our revised plan.

STUDENTS

Residence Halls: Electrical power will remain on in all residence halls from the hours of 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. each evening through Monday morning, January 22nd, allowing normal routines between those hours. Students should have full access to the network from their rooms as long as power is on in their buildings.

Note: Residence halls whose heating is independent of the shared steam plant will have heat between 5 p.m. and 8 a.m. Some residence halls are still hooked up to the central steam plant for Claremont Colleges. Heat for those buildings is dependent on the cooperation of the other colleges and the procurement of a temporary generator, of which there is a severe shortage in California. We will keep you posted on these developments.

Daytime Needs: Students may follow routines during any power loss occurring between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. - with a number of options:

• Collins Dining Hall will remain open between meals, and the Athenaeum will remain open during business hours. These are convenient and comfortable locations for studying and meeting with friends.
• When there is no power in the dorms, students who wish to shower may go to locker rooms in the Ducey Gymnasium but should bring their identification card and towel.
• Adams Hall and the computer labs will remain functional and are open 24 hours a day.

ACADEMICS

Additional generators will not be installed at all classroom buildings and classes will be rescheduled to those rooms where there is natural light. We hope to have Bauer South tied to power for classroom use with a temporary generator; however, as mentioned earlier, generators are extremely scarce in California during this crisis. The next few weeks will be more low-tech than high-tech and we appreciate your ongoing patience and cooperation.

FACULTY

Questions regarding faculty support may be addressed to Dean Ascher's office. In addition to using the Adams Hall computer labs, other areas will also be available for computer work and other tasks.

ONGOING COMMUNICATIONS

Power updates are posted daily on the CMC website. In addition, you may contact us with questions, ideas or concerns, via e-mail on the website's "powersource" section, powersource@claremontmckenna.edu.

PLEASE NOTE

The College may still experience "rolling blackouts" from time to time. These cannot be avoided and are particularly likely during cold weather when overall electrical usage is higher than normal.

Everyone should take standard precautions in the event of a rolling blackout. These include taking stairs instead of elevators; scrupulous care in saving computer documents; and familiarity with emergency lighting and location of flashlights. In addition, we must all take extra measures to conserve energy - turn lights off when leaving the room, avoid peak times for using laundry facilities, and other common sense practices.

I am confident that together we will endure these difficult times.

Pamela B. Gann