The Music Department is quiet. Granted, it is a Friday before Columbus Day weekend, and it is customary for campus to be deserted on such a day. But those who inhabit the Fine Arts Center are usually of a different breed, accustomed to working here till the 11th hour. The absence of music in these halls is not typical.

Here and there secretaries, administrators and a few professors are working in offices with their doors open and a makeshift system of electric fans running in the hallway. A few vocalists can be heard in one of the studios upstairs, struggling to stay on pitch in an environment that continues, fans notwithstanding, to be stifling.

The lack of air circulation is merely palpable on the upper floors. Downstairs, in the space used most by students, including several classrooms, a hallway full of lockers, and two corridors lined with small practice rooms, the air is still. The temperatures are stifling. And the silence is deafening.

“We have been without air conditioning since the very first day of classes [this year],” says Chris Thornley, the Director of Facilities for the Music Department. According to Thornley, one of the building’s large chiller units, which cool outside air as it is circulated through the building, was struck by lightning over the Labor Day weekend, and, he said, the entire system has been out since Registration Day, on September 5.

Thornley and others cited transportation difficulties after the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center for the delay in repairing the units.

Students, looking for someone to blame, have spread rumors recently about corruption and neglect in dealing with the system. Some students have claimed that the University knew about malfunctions in the chiller units up to a year ago, and did nothing to solve the problem. Still others said that calls to Environmental Health and Services were deliberately deflected on University orders to “cover up” the problem.

Thornley and FAC Associate Director for Operations and Facilities Jim MacRostie categorically denied these rumors. No evidence of their truth could be uncovered from other sources, including professors, several students and the Chancellor’s Office. “Those are rumors,” Thornley said.

Also a rumor, according to Music Dept. Professor Elizabeth Parker, is a sort of urban legend that has sprung up among Music Dept. students that the bodies of dead pigeons have been trapped in the ventilation systems and contaminating the air for years.

“Someone had told me a few years ago about seeing pigeon feet sticking out of a ventilation grate,” Parker said. Those vents haven’t been cleaned for years, she admitted, but she could not confirm the sighting personally.

What she said she could confirm, however, is that the readily apparent ventilation problems in the FAC are bad enough. “It’s been a very hard month for us,” she said.

Parker went on, “there’s no ventilation. There’s no air in here unless doors are propped open.” She said that this is a problem in the Music Department because musicians need relative quiet in order to practice. She told of a brass-choir rehearsal in one of the classrooms in recent days that drove other students out of the practice spaces with its volume when the doors were propped open for air circulation purposes.

Parker said she has been personally suffering from a number of health issues that she and her doctor relate to the current ventilation problems in the building. Parker said that there is mold growing in the lower-level classroom ceilings, and that the recent humidity, heat and stagnation have been causing it to flourish.

MacRostie and Thornley said they had not heard of such a problem. “I think that would have been brought to my attention,” MacRostie said. “And it hasn’t.”

Still, according to Parker, her allergist has advised her to stay away from the building as much as possible. She has had to cancel or curtail office hours for students in her classes, and also said that students have been similarly impeded in their studies.

“The temperatures in the classrooms are very high,” she said. “and students are having problems because of it.” She said symptoms of heat fatigue and allergic reactions ranging from headaches, fatigue, nausea, dizziness, itching eyes, coughs and colds have been reported.

According to Parker and others, this is especially damaging for voice majors, whose instrument is a part of their bodies. When respiratory symptoms occur, it hinders their training, Parker said, adding about her office, “I can’t teach a singer in here.”

Normally, according to Parker, members of her Opera Workshop ensemble have the space for rehearsal and instruction. “Not anymore, at least right now,” she said.

Parker was especially interested in advocating for the students under her supervision. “These kids spend four years trapped underground,” she said. “But they deserve all the best.”

Other professors have joined with Parker in trying to ease the impact of the problems on students. It was reported by several students that Voice Professor Paulina Stark was offering some private lessons at her house since the ventilation problem grew worse.

Junior Vocal Performance majors Laryssa Sadoway and Heather Curley said they felt their studies had been impeded by the ventilation problem. “I can’t breathe in there,” Curley said.

Sadoway reported that she had been facing health problems in recent weeks. She said she had been to Health Services three times in the past week, but that there was nothing they could do for her. She was given the number for Environmental Health and Services, she said, but had not called it yet. She said she felt frustrated because she was without resources for dealing with the problem. “Whoever you’re yelling at, you get the feeling you’re still yelling at the wrong person,” she said.

“Our complaints fall on deaf ears,” said Senior Vocal Performance Major Kellie-Marie Leavitt. She agreed with her colleagues that the problem is hardest on singers in that the building is not currently a pleasant atmosphere.

“It’s like a petri dish. When someone gets a cold, and the air doesn’t move, everyone gets it,” she said, “We have epidemics in the FAC, and this is the worst it has ever been.”

Leavitt, who reported never having strep throat before entering college, said she has frequently contracted the disease in recent times and believes the conditions in the FAC to be the cause.

“If this were a place where we spent two hours a day, [the current problems] still wouldn’t be excusable, but it wouldn’t be as bad,” Leavitt continued. “But people are there all the time. You are looking at ten hours a day if not more. When people spend that much time there, there’s definitely going to be some kind of long term effect.”

Meanwhile, an employee who declined to be named said she had spent longer in the building than most students who only stay for four years and has suffered a number of health problems as a result.

The employee said that she had a history of asthma, and it had driven her to see her doctor three times in the past two weeks. She said she had set up two fans and an air cleaner in her work area, but even that, combined with a number of inhalant and prescription drugs she takes regularly, have not allayed the problem.

“It’s brutal in here,” she said. “And it’s not just me. It’s been brutal on the students too.”

Students must use the practice rooms downstairs and thus do not receive any air, she explained.

“They’ve been good about not complaining too much,” she said, “but that’s because they don’t have a choice.”

She said that the chillers have been down for over a year and that “the [Music Department] wing has been a constant problem,” noting that three and a half years ago, pneumonia that she connects with water leakage problems in the building kept her out of work for six weeks.

Leavitt pointed out that when individuals, especially performers, suffer health problems, entire ensembles are affected, and that in turn affects the department in its recruitment of new students.

“[The D
epartment] is not getting new students to come here. It’s not getting new students that do come to stay here, and it’s not getting older students to recommend coming here,” Leavitt said. “Who wants to be in a place where to do what you love to do means you risk getting sick?

She concluded that something must be done in order to curtail these health problems, for fine arts at UMass are in jeopardy.

Parker speculated about the reasons for the current problem, citing high levels of financial aid, rigidly fixed tuition prices, and high investments in athletics as part of the problem.

“If you look at our department, you see that, say, Lynn Klock is only teaching one student on the saxophone at a time, but in, say, the engineering department, one professor is teaching hundreds of students in bigger classes, so we don’t appear to be cost-efficient,” she explained what she believes to be an unfair evaluation of the department.

Senior Music Major Heather Trammell also criticized funding allocations at the University.

“Work in FAC has definitely been crippled,” she said, adding that Prof. Parker, whom she studies with, has been unavailable to students as a result of her health problems.

“This isn’t a decent environment for students to work properly or practice effectively,” Trammell said, “and that means in general that they’re not getting as much out of the education they paid for as they should be.”

Believing that this problem comes down to a matter of funding, Trammell offered, “Maybe they [the University] have their funding in the wrong place.”

She said she had seen Room 149, a research computer lab and practice space on the lower levels, being refurbished with new tables and chairs, and that this had been disappointing in light of the greater ventilation problems.

“I would hope that [the University] would prioritize their students who are paying for an education in a safe and comfortable environment,” Trammell said. “[But] I’ve never seen any effort on the University’s part to try and correct [the problems].”

MacRostie countered that the Physical Plant employees are doing whatever they can do in order to fix the problem, explaining that while the employees are overloaded with maintenance projects in all the buildings on campus, they have been spending whole days on this particular situation.

“[Physical Plant employees] have made it possible to draw in outside air,” he said, “but the problem is that you’re still drawing in hot air.”

He said that the University lacks the resources to fully renovate the system. The chiller units, according to Thornley, cost at least $300,000 apiece to replace.

“What we’re looking at now,” said MacRostie, “is whether we’re going to replace one and repair the other, or whether we’ll have to replace both.”

In the meantime, he said, the Physical Plant workers are doing the best they can. “They’re handling it as well as it can be handled,” he said.

“It was a freak electrical surge [caused by lightning],” MacRostie pointed out, that destroyed the units in the first place. “It’s one of those things that can happen at any time. I don’t think anyone can predict things like that.”

Not everyone that uses the FAC has seen this as such a dire situation. Ron Macheau, Chair of the Art Department in the FAC, said that he felt that while the building is uncomfortable, he has not seen significant health problems. He also said that certain solvents used in art projects had been moved out of the building for safety reasons because the temperature is out of control, but the Art Department had not really been inconvenienced by the problems.

Students of one art history professor, however, spread rumors that the heat and other conditions lined to the lack of ventilation had damaged some of his course materials, including slides. This professor could not be reached for comment as of press time.

Meanwhile, Ed Golden, Co-Chair of the Theater Department that is housed in the FAC, called the problem “horrendous.”

“It always is,” he added.

Golden said he had been in the department for twenty-three years, and recalled earlier problems with the ventilation in the building, this time with the heating. This breakdown caused a cold Golden called “inhuman,” saying that it had especially affected the performance of dancers and actors in the Rand Theater.

While he cited his fellow Co-Chair Penny Ramson’s “brave efforts,” in pushing the University to solve the problem, Golden said that the continuing problems are depressing.

“It never ever seems to be right in any season,” he said, “It never seems like anyone gets a handle on the essential problem and fixes it.”

Golden also blamed the problems in part on the structure of the building, with much of the classroom and theatrical space underground, and with windows on the upper floors that do not open, calling the building “a bunker.”

He also expressed frustration with the University administration. “The bureaucracy doesn’t help,” he said. “Messages don’t get through.”

The University administration has long been a scapegoat when it comes to issues of funding. But it is facing its own obstacles in the repair of the FAC’s ventilation systems, and it turns out that the administration may not be as powerful or as sinister as many believe them to be.

In a telephone interview, Ted Widener, the Associate Vice Chancellor for Facilities and Campus Services, defended the recent operations of the Physical Plant and the University administration.

In response to widespread student criticism that the School of Management was receiving a new addition while the FAC suffered from a lack of air, Widener said that the University had received funding for the School of Management project from an individual donor.

He said he could not identify the donor, or whether that donor was an alumnus or member of the community, but he did report, “We’re not going to look at a donor willing to give several million dollars and say, ‘Thank you, but we don’t want your money’.”

In response to allegations of inaction on the Administration’s part, Widener said that the University conducted a survey several years ago with an independent firm to determine the cost of repairs to all buildings on campus, including the FAC.

“We concluded that we’d need $22 million a year, adjusted for inflation, over 20 years, for adequate repairs,” he said. “That’s a total of $400 million,” adding that the University had brought the proposal before the Board of Trustees, but the money was simply not available.

He said this was due to the limitations on funding that the University receives from the state, which translates into the money willingly spent by taxpayers on higher education.

Widener also cited recent financial issues in the state such as those associated with Boston’s Big Dig for the funding shortage.

“We are not the only campus, or the only state, where this problem has occurred,” he said, “Sometimes there’s just not enough funding for higher education.”

In the meantime, Widener said, “We prioritize to the best of our ability that $400 million worth of work. It’s difficult for us to solve all the problems the way everyone wants.” He said that, ironically, the current system of emergency repairs and “band-aid methods” will end up costing the University more in the long term.

Widener also said that the air conditioning in the FAC had been on the list of urgent projects, “but it failed before we were able to get to it.”

Echoing the frustrations of students and faculty, Widener said that the recent statistics on the discrepancy between the academic spending at UMass and comparable institutions is part of the problem.

“That $658 dollars less per student is exactly the kind of revenue that would pay to fix the air conditioning,” he said.

Meanwhile, Widener said, in order to fix the air conditioning unit, the Physical Plant has had to dig $50,000 to $75,000 out of its operating budget. “That money will still probably be lost,” he remarked. “It will fix the air conditioning now, but it will likely fail again in a year or less.”

He said that the infra
structure problems now faced by colleges and universities across the country can be traced back to the baby boom generation, and the explosion of construction projects undertaken by colleges across the country between 1960 and 1975 to meet growing student populations. While those buildings were financed in their construction, Widener said, they were not allocated money for their maintenance and repair. As the buildings near the 30 to 45-year age mark, he said, repairs become more crucial, resulting in the kind of crunch being felt now at UMass, inside FAC and many other buildings.

“We may see the closure of buildings if these problems continue,” Widener said.

He said that the state has also issued a mandate saying that tuition prices cannot increase, and that this has blocked further paths to finance repairs with taxpayer money already tight. It seems nonsensical, he said, but pointed out, “what I like or don’t like is not a consideration here.”

He asked rhetorically of students as consumers, “Would you rather have an economical education or the air conditioning working in the Fine Arts Center?”

Heather Curley had an answer. “I’d pay for air,” she said.

PULL QUOTES: “This isn’t a decent environment for students to work properly or practice effectively,” Trammell said, “and that means in general that they’re not getting as much out of the education they paid for as they should be.”

“We may see the closure of buildings if these problems continue,” Widener said.

“It’s like a petri dish. When someone gets a cold, and the air doesn’t move, everyone gets it,” she said, “We have epidemics in the FAC, and this is the worst it has ever been.”