The fall 2013 semester ended with a bang for students studying ceramics. A large concrete panel fell from the ceiling of the ceramics studio during Thanksgiving break and left faculty and students wondering about the safety of the building they depended on for their daily work.
Students returning to the ceramics studio this semester will be greeted with a new all-metal ceiling, completed over the break to replace the old tile ceiling.
Andy Shaw, assistant professor of art, said he was surprised and pleased with the reaction time from the University immediately following the incident.
“To me it looked like they had all the significant personnel needed to make things right,” Shaw said. “It seems sometimes things don’t get fixed as fast as they could but with this they made it happen as fast as possible.”
“All the concrete tiles they had in there are now gone, and there is no reason we have to fear, and they completely removed the problem,” Shaw said.
Shaw said the crashing tile was an inconvenience to some but could not have happened at a more fortunate time as far as safety of students and faculty was concerned.
“Thankfully when it happened, there was nobody working in that room and there were hardly any people in the building at all,” Shaw said. “If someone had been standing there it would have changed their life permanently for the worse.”
While the timing was fortuitous for the safety of the students and faculty, it did put stress on the end of the semester for students looking to finish their projects.
“The end of the semester is all about finishing your glaze and getting your project into the kiln,” Shaw said. “Unfortunately the room where the event occurred serves both of those purposes so we had to get creative and grade things up to the point they had finished.”
Shaw said there are still plenty of repairs needed throughout the Studio Arts Building, but he said he is glad the safety concerns were taken seriously and dealt with so quickly.
“Initially when this happened, we were worried about even going forward with the spring semester, but they took safety seriously, and the building is ready for full use,” Shaw said. “They did a great job, and we’re glad to be back and safe in the building we use all the time.”