CSULB rides heat wave

Cal State Long Beach, along with the surrounding city, experienced 95-degree heat on Monday, according to accuweather.com.

National Weather Service meteorologist Cathy Hoxsie said that the heat came from the usual high-pressure loft from Santa Ana winds.

“This is a fairly normal type of heat event,” Hoxsie said.

But some students said they were not used to the heat.

“You can’t take five steps without sweating,” said 20-year-old Bryan Corral, an undeclared sophomore, while tossing three clubs in the air on upper campus with CSULB’s Beach Balls juggling club.

Twenty-five-year-old senior nutrition major Tony Butte found air conditioning in the Horn Center as a refuge, so that “I didn’t have to sweat all over campus.”

Not everyone was able to escape the heat, however.

History professor Andrew Jenks said he teaches in the Peterson Hall 2 and the Liberal Arts 1 buildings.  He said he saw his students “boil” and “bake” while sitting in these rooms.

Apart from the heat, Jenks said that when he teaches a class in the LA 1 building and looks out the windows, he sees nearby construction work.

“Every single day, when I teach, you can hear the pneumatic dills and the jackhammers,” Jenks said. “If you close the windows, it doesn’t make much of a difference. Plus, given how hot it is, it’s intolerable.”

Jenks said that when the construction projects for the LA buildings were being renovated, they “pushed” faculty into the PH buildings.

“It’s the worst teaching environment I have ever been involved in,” Jenks said.

On Monday, many College of Liberal Arts faculty members sent their complaints to their department chairs, among other superiors.

Political science professor and CLA facilities director Mary Caputi said in an email to CLA faculty and staff that Interim Director of Academic Facilities Mike Blazey “put in a work order” early Monday morning to have box fans delivered to all the PH 1 and 2 buildings that don’t have air conditioning.

However, junior English major Shay Sharp said that the fans were somewhat useless.

“It’s stuffy in the [PH2] room,” she said. “[It was] circulation of warm air rather than cool air.”

Nancy Quam-Wickham, who is the history department chair, said that when the university closed up the LA buildings three years ago and moved many of the classrooms to the PH buildings, that first fall, there were no window coverings or fans.

“We had students who were becoming physically ill because of the heat,” Quam-Wickham said.

She said that when CLA Dean David Wallace first toured the buildings, he said “he cannot teach in those rooms.” Since then, window coverings and some fans were installed, she said.

In an email sent to CLA faculty and staff on Monday, Italian studies professor Clorinda Donato said that the heated classrooms interfered with her physically.

“Last year, I taught in PH1,” Donato said. “It was so hot that I nearly fainted a few times and had to sit down and let the class go early.”

She said the room “was so stifling, that each week I looked for a different place to hold the class…”

“I’m aware that some professors have had to be moved out of those class rooms because they have medical conditions that are aggravated by the heat — and that’s perfectly fine,” Quam-Wickham said. “But we don’t know about our students.”

Quam-Wickham said that the fans distributed to the PH rooms may help, but she said she doesn’t understand why faculty have to wait until they “reach this critical point” if the National Weather Service already predicted the intense heat.

“I understand that this an unusual heat event, but this is also year three,” Quam-Wickham said.

Staff Writer Brooke Becher contributed to this report.