Saint Xavier University’s Chicago campus experienced two power outages on Tuesday, Oct. 2 amidst tempestuous weather conditions, causing a myriad of unforeseen circumstances to students and faculty alike.
The blackouts took place approximately from 11AM to 12:30PM – the first one lasted only a few seconds, but the second outage left a majority of the campus without power for nearly 30 minutes.
SXU’s Director of Facilities Peter Skach said that “the north side buildings on campus [and] dorms with exception to Pacelli Hall… and Warde Academic Center was affected [by the outage].”
“ComEd advised me that the power outage on campus was caused by a downed power line on nearby Central Park Avenue,” said Skach. “ComEd restored the power… [in] under one hour.”
Campus Safety was one of the only locations to weather the outage, sustaining its operations with an on-site backup generator until main power could be restored to the rest of the college. However, the effects were certainly felt throughout the rest of the campus, with students and professors reacting to the situation in various methods.
Some students remained unaffected by the electrical issues, getting through the incident with little to no disruption in their daily lives. “I was in the Andrew Conference Center and power was fine. I didn’t experience anything,” said SXU student Brianna Ramos.
Other students that were in the conference center or in Pacelli Hall remarked that they went uninterrupted by power outages as well.
A cadre of dormers and commuters also responded with verve and enthusiasm. They celebrated the outage and hoping that classes would be postponed to accommodate the impracticality of continuing daily operations. Others, however, were much more concerned with the power outage.
One student commented that the blackout left her unable to submit a paper on time. Others took to social media to express their annoyance with the incident. “Everyone was putting it on SnapChat and saying stuff like ‘This is SXU’ and ‘Power outage at SXU’,” said SXU student Esteban Leija, who was in class during the outage.
Indeed, some professors had to modify their schedules and teaching styles in order to compensate for the lack of access to the Internet or other electrical commodities.
“In the class that I was teaching, when the power went out, I had to continue teaching in a darkened classroom with no lights and no technology,” said Mathematics Professor Candice Nielsen of her Finite Mathematics class. “As a result, I had to dismiss the students early because there were things that we could not do without light,” she said.
Other professors decided to roll with the punches and hold a completely verbal lecture, while instructors with a critical reliance on computers were forced to push back items on the syllabus. “…In my Statistics class, I extended a due date on a homework assignment because the power outage caused the WiFi not to be working and all the homework is online… I pushed it back a day or two,” said Professor Nielsen.
Fortunately, Director Skach remarked that there were no further effects of the power outage after ComEd restored the downed power line.
Joshua Mira
News Editor
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