With a Little Help from Our Friends

B-r-r-r-r-r: the sound of the Sawzall cuts through not only concrete block wall, but also our concentration. Ta-ta-tap: someone’s hammer tattoos the wall. This morning, when I left the faculty office, the door banged into lengths of aluminum and caught on a vacuum hose. “Just a minute,” said the friendly worker, as he moved things out of the way so we could go off to our classes. A metal toolchest the size of a pickup truck bed sits next to the door; a stack of fiberglass panels lies at the hallway juncture; a rack of brightly colored insulated wire waits to dispense its wares. The restroom is temporarily closed.

It’s lucky we weren’t barricaded into the offices because this is final exam week: students come to class frowning as they balance notes in their hands and thoughts in their heads. We come into the classrooms with crisp papers clipped into a pack, and leave with sheaves of hand-written answers. Calculators ponder averages and students hope for good results (or in some cases, the miraculous).

In the midst of this end-of-semester, one anatomy lab is being reconfigured to provide not only body part study, but chemistry and physics lab work. What took three months to complete in Room 228, should be happening over winter break in Room 220.

In theory, the liberal arts classrooms escape the technological updating and remodeling. In theory works for three hours. “Do you have a cable junction box here?” the man in the stocking cap and overcoat asks. I look up from grading exams and the students still writing theirs concentrate more fiercely on the thoughts they are putting on paper. “I don’t know,” I answer, hoping he will go away. Is any exam safe from disruption? “I’m a contractor,” he adds, looking around the room. He closes the door, but he’s back five minutes later, looking under machines and desks, moving around the students; he’s back again five minutes after that, with our IT person, discussing the frayed wires under a strip of plastic, studying the system. The students persevere.

When I come back to the offices after the first exam, the fiberglass panels have been set into place as a temporary vestibule; the tool chest and a companion occupy the hallway. I think how lucky we are. When some people can’t afford to have problems fixed, ours are being addressed. We see not only the standard wastebasket emptying and floor cleaning. Upgrades happen. Wires are mended. Labs are renewed.

The physical plant is being cared for, and the learning continues. We’re not only learning that people care about our well-being and classroom standards; we’re practicing our concentration and also learning flexibility.