Condition of NDSU is Bleak….Creeping Meatballism
- December 30th, 2009
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Menards Hall collapses at North Dakota State University.
Definition of “Creeping Meatballism” The idea of thinking individually has become a big joke. Old Thomas J. Watson of I.B.M. came up with the idea for a sign which just said: “Think”. And today, it’s a gag! This is the result of “Creeping Meatballism”.
On the first of December, Dr. Richard Hanson became the interim president of NDSU. I recall thinking at the time that he might becoming president of an institution on the verge of collapse. I had no idea that it might happen literally. I’m referring, of course, the collapse of the north side of that grand old structure Minard Hall.
For those unfamiliar with the NDSU campus, Minard Hall is the four floor yellow brick building with maroon trim across Albrecht Blvd from the NDSU Library, sandwiched between Askanase Hall(the Little County Theatre), the heating plant and Festival Hall. It was built in three stages, the first being in 1901. It houses the College of Arts, Humanities and social Sciences, as well s the Mathematics and Psychology Departments of the College of Science and Mathematics.
For those not involved in higher education at a research university, this is a catastrophe of indescribable proportion. To me, it is symbolic of the neglect a state with a billion dollar surplus and its population treats its higher education system. I don’t expect to make any friends by saying this, but for me, this is the straw that broke the camel’s back. I no longer care whether the youth of North Dakota get quality education or not. Much as I love my students, the state just doesn’t deserve the effort.
So let’s return to Minard Hall, clearly one of the most important buildings on campus. Currently it is closed to everyone. There is hope to get the offices and classrooms not affected by the collapse ready for the start of spring semester. There will supposedly be a window of opportunity for faculty with offices in the safe part of the building to return to their offices to retrieve important materials, such as books and papers, before the building is closed again. I find that many don’t understand that NDSU is a research university, meaning that just because classes are not in session does not mean the faculty don’t need to use their offices. I think the NDSU administration, in particular provost/academic vice president Craig Schnell, and, for that matter, some of the students, of publicizing the fact that many of the lost books and papers are irreplaceable. I can only imagine how much research has been lost.
Bruce Frantz, who is in charge of the physical buildings on campus, would have us believe that this was an unforeseeable accident, and there were no mistakes made by his office or the contractor. Snort. This is an engineering school with a strong construction engineering program and excellent construction engineering faculty. They just didn’t pay attention, in my view. Franz is probably right to say the collapse happened at one of the few times no one would get hurt. I’m glad, of course, that no-one did, but if someone had, I would have enjoyed the embarrassing national publicity that might have followed.
Franz would also have us believe that the damage can be fixed(for half a million. The loss to the affected faculty, of course, can’t. Even if it could, it turns out that NDSU carries no liability insurance). I question whether Minard Hall should be repaired. The building has been an expensive disaster for decades. My office is in Minard Hall, but not in the affected area. But my library and research papers and very probably my health has suffered much over the years.
Sometime in my first few years at NDSU the roof above(by a floor or two) sprang a leak and much of my library, carefully and costfully assembled while I was a graduate student and new faculty member, was drenched, rendering many of the books unusable, as the pages are all stuck together. This has happened so many times since that during a rain storm there is apparently a stand-by crew available that can go rushing into faculty offices and cover everything with plastic if the roof leaks. I read something about this once, but since I’ve observed it happening a few times, there’s no need to cite it.
Air quality has also been an issue in Minard Hall, due to its proximity to the heating plant. In fact, the state health department once declared my office as uninhabitable. My department and college administration was unable to find another office for me, but fortunately I was able to generate two invitations from departments in other buildings to reside there. Yes, that is a dig at the problem solving abilities of the NDSU administration.
So, what we have here is an historic building that houses many important departments and in which many classes are taught that is virtually collapsing. We didn’t have enough space for our 14,000 students before this happened. And all of this at the end of an eleven year term of a president, Forum’s man of the year, that could raise millions for athletics, but couldn’t keep a major building safe in a state with a billion dollar surplus.
There’s many more problems Chapman left us with, but that could be the topic of another essay.
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