Student activities in the campus center have become especially heated in recent weeks — not due to emotions, but because an outdated heating system is in need of replacement.
Temperatures in the campus center, particularly in the lower-level Large Conference Room, have reached uncomfortably warm levels due to the limitations of the sole central heating system that controls the temperature of the entire campus center.
The overheating in the building has been an issue for decades, according to Joe Golia, the director of the Office for Campus Life (OCL), which manages the daily operations of the campus center. But unseasonably warm weather this fall has at times aggravated the problem.
The system that controls the temperature in the campus center only allows either heating or cooling at any one time, so when outside temperatures fluctuate between hot and cold, the system can't adjust, according to Vice President of Operations John Roberto.
Golia said he has relayed numerous complaints over the past year to the Facilities Department, which oversees the heating in the campus center. He said the OCL receives complaints fairly frequently in the fall and spring.
"This is definitely something that needs to be addressed," he said. "It's really not fair to students who are trying to find a comfortable place to meet or study."
A system update that would remedy this situation began last year and will likely be completed next summer, according to Roberto.
High temperatures at a Tufts Student Resources staff luncheon held in the conference room last month forced students to lodge a complaint with the OCL.
"The vents were blasting hot air into the room. It felt like it was over 90 degrees," said sophomore Angela Lyonsjustus, office manager for Tufts Student Resources. "It wasn't a comfortable environment for a meeting."
Food that the group had ordered for its luncheon was left sitting out in the room, creating a situation that Golia said was "unhealthy."
The heat has similarly impacted other student groups. Junior Dan Pasternack, a Tufts Community Union (TCU) senator, said that the heating has had a visible effect on the proceedings of weekly TCU Senate meetings, which take place in the Large Conference Room.
"It quite literally makes things more heated. It gets everyone's emotions going," Pasternack said. "You put everyone in hot heated room for an extended period of time and emotions start to fly."
The overheating problem stems from the limits of the temperature control system currently in place in the campus center and in a number of other buildings across campus, Roberto said.
The system as it stands allows for only heating or cooling to be on at any given time. Once the heat is turned on in mid-October, it is not turned off until late spring, creating an unpleasant environment in the building on particularly warm days.
In order to combat this problem, the university in the summer of 2008 purchased and installed an "over-large cooling system," called a chiller, for the building, according to Roberto.
But for the system to work, the Facilities Department must convert the building from a two-pipe system to a four-pipe system, allowing for both heating and cooling to service different parts of the building simultaneously. Due to budget and time constraints, the university has yet to convert the building.
"The whole process is rather time-intensive and challenging to do while school is in session, because it involves removing overhead paneling," Roberto said. "We hope to have the chiller in place and functioning by the end of [next] summer."
The heating problem is exacerbated by the fact that the heat blasts more at night to compensate for a decrease in temperature. Then, during the day when the weather warms up outside, the building retains the heat it accumulated overnight with no way to dissipate it.
"We most frequently encounter this problem during the shoulder seasons, when we experience some days when it is quite chilly outside and then other days when the temperatures are in the 60s," Roberto said. "The heating system just can't keep up with the changes in outdoor temperature."
In recent weeks, the Senate has attempted to cool the conference room using a fan. Unfortunately, the fan was not a viable solution, Pasternack said.
"The fan was just distracting," he said. "It made it so you could not hear what anyone on the other side of the room was saying."
