For nearly a decade and a half, the College of Art and Design has been waiting to receive construction funding, but on Saturday in the ceramics studio, the college’s students’ and faculty’s greatest nightmare was realized when a concrete panel fell from the ceiling, shutting down the studio indefinitely.
While no one was injured, students agreed had it not been the Thanksgiving holiday, someone could have been hurt. They said there is no time when that building isn’t occupied, and the spot where the concrete panel fell is the area with the most traffic.
“The ceiling tile actually hit the sink on the way down, so if someone would have been standing there, they would’ve gotten hit,” said Molly Gleason, ceramics and sculpture junior. “That sink gets used probably the most every single day because it’s the only one big enough for our buckets.”
Associate Executive Director of Facility Services David Maharrey said the University is currently evaluating the building and determining the next step. He also said the building is on the list to be renovated, but there is no definite timeframe for those renovations to be completed.
University officials are aware of the construction needs on campus, but according to Assistant Director of Long Range Planning Ken Courtade, the state government determines when and where funding for construction goes.
Additionally, despite this life and safety issue, the earliest anyone can expect to see funding for construction would be July 2014, he said.
Courtade said the art studios have been on the capital outlay budget since 1999, waiting for funding, and the wait has only increased the price tag.
“The scope of the project has changed, which has increased the cost of the project considerably,” Courtade said. “Now, it’s over a $15 million project.”
Assistant Director of Facility Services Tammy Millican said the state already provided money for the College of Art and Design to do the planning and designing, which has been finished for more than a year.
“It takes several years to move through the capital outlay process,” Maharrey said.
He said the legislation looks at construction projects from across the state, and each year projects are prioritized differently depending on the budget cuts in certain areas, funding amounts and other factors.
The capital outlay budget for the 2014-15 school year mentions roofing repairs to be done to different buildings on campus, but it does not specify which buildings.
Associate art professor Mickey Walsh said this incident is deteriorating the overall morale of students and faculty.
“I think we all feel really defeated by what’s going on,” Walsh said. “We find ourselves in a chronically difficult position because we value what we do, we have great students, we have a lot of momentum, we have a good program and we just don’t get supported.”
Walsh said she and others are starting to feel a sense of brokenness and abuse and as if there is nothing anyone can do to fix the problem.
“I am supportive of our administration and what they are trying to do,” Walsh said. “I believe with every fiber of my being that they are doing everything they can do, and I know they are just as frustrated as we are, so it’s not necessarily an LSU issue. It’s a bigger issue about the value of the arts and the value of the students’ safety that are in the arts.”
While the faculty members are upset about the lack of construction progress in the College of Art and Design, ceramics students who have been affected the most by this event are equally outraged.
“We are supposed to have renovations within the next couple of years, but they should have made sure it was actually safe for us to be in there,” said ceramics and sculpture senior Summer Zeringue.
Zeringue said she hopes this event will open the eyes of the state government because there could have been a lawsuit if someone had been hurt.
Ceramics senior Jess Cole said she is not surprised by this incident, but that it is greatly affecting her ability to complete her final projects in time for graduation.
“By the nature of the things I make, I need one of the tiny kilns in there,” Cole said. “I can’t use anything else, so it adds a crazy amount of stress to my life and extra days of work. I am absolutely not surprised the ceiling fell through. If you leave anything laying in that room for like an hour, when you come back, there are a bunch of black specks on it because of the rust falling from the ceiling.”
As someone who has been at the University for six-and-a-half years, Cole said she has invested much of her time and money in this program, and she is frustrated by the lack of plans to fix the problems the art studios have.
“I was on my way back from New Orleans to unload the kiln that my work was in when I got the email saying the building was shut down,” said ceramic junior Patrick LeBas. “So, my final pieces of the semester and all of my work in progress is currently a permanent installation in this shut-off building.”
Among other issues, students in the College of Art and Design face the struggles of working in studios without heaters, broken windows, mold and unsanitary bathroom conditions.
“It’s not just this hallway,” Gleason said. “Someone got let in the sculpture hallway on game day and threw up all over the women’s bathroom, and it’s been in there for two weeks, and no one has cleaned it up.”
She also said there is black mold on the walls of the hallway, and she and her fellow students often get sick from it.
“Last semester, I was staying up here late working on a project and I got so cold that I got sick from that one night in the studio,” she said.
Although this incident is an obstacle for the students, it’s more fuel to add to the fire of the lack of construction progress.
“The Rec is getting a lazy river and we are losing buildings,” LeBas said.