Sofia Davis and Jack McElwee
The Charles P. Ruch Engineering Building suffered a flood over Labor Day weekend, displacing dozens of students.
Classes and research labs are being temporarily relocated to other buildings on campus while the university addresses the damage.
The flood originated from a third-floor conference room, where a sink leak in a conference room went unnoticed over the weekend, according to building staff. The west side of the building is missing trim and ceiling tiles, and personal items have been removed or placed in boxes. Fans are being used to dry the carpet, while tubes are draining standing water into trash cans.
Sophomore Ana Alvarez said her class was moved out of the Ruch Building into a space far less conducive to learning.
“We got moved from one of the lecture halls in the Ruch to the Spec [Special Events Center] in the Student Union Building,” Alvarez said. “It’s kind of awkward with spacing. Our professor doesn’t have a whiteboard, and he would always write on the whiteboard.”
She explains the Special Events Center isn’t set up as a lecture hall, leaving students without desks or tables for their laptops or outlets to charge their devices.
“It’s really hard to kind of keep that classroom dynamic going,” Alvarez said.
The flood has not put the entire building out of commission. Most first-floor classes have been relocated to other buildings, while most classes on the upper floors remain active, despite the leak seemingly coming from the third floor.
Senior Reece Hackett says he received two emails over the Labor Day weekend, one from the university and one from his professor, notifying him that his class has been relocated to the Education Building. Though the professor is now offering students to join the class virtually, the move is still quite challenging.
“He’s having an issue with class participation now, because a lot of people aren’t even showing up to the zoom,” Hackett said, “The people who do attend in person have to rush over to the other side of campus because all of our other classes are in the engineering buildings, which are all grouped together on the east side of campus.”
While the cause and full extent of the damage are still unknown according to the office of communications and marketing, an email sent to students states the building is expected to resume operations within two weeks.
