The divided responsibilities of two Ohio University departments resulted in many residence hall rooms not being inspected this quarter.
Room inspections are traditionally done every quarter with responsibilities divided between OU's Department of Environmental Health and Safety and Department of Residence Life. This quarter, however, EHS completed inspections, but Residence Life did not perform inspections in the 29 to 33 buildings for which they are responsible, said Judy Piercy, interim director of residence life at OU.
We were trying to clarify with Environmental Health and Safety about who was doing what ... Some buildings were not done because of other responsibilities
Piercy said.
The trade-off occurred because of time constraints for Resident Directors based on other responsibilities, such as meeting with students who are on academic probation, Piercy said.
EHS has completed room inspections for Winter Quarter in several buildings and is working on South Green, said Sam Hanson, the department's coordinator.
We usually choose (which resident halls to inspect) by calling the green directors at the beginning of the quarter and ask which ones they want EHS to inspect he said. Usually they pick the main ones the big ones.
Before Hanson arrived at OU 11 years ago, all inspections were done by residence life, he said, adding that he thinks EHS started helping with inspections because residence life was too much concerned about making everybody happy and not enough concerned about making sure (students) didn't do stupid things that killed each other.
I have a lot of respect for residence life
Hanson said. We share a lot of the same goals
but we might not place our priorities in exactly the same order.
Residence Life took responsibility for some room inspections as a favor to EHS, said Jenny Hall-Jones, assistant director of residence life for East Green, adding that she is not sure how effective the division of inspections is between departments.
(Residence Life does) inspections at the end of each quarter
so why are we going in again? We want to make sure it's safe
but we're not sure it's the most effective use of our time
she said.
The room inspection process might be different next academic year, Piercy said.
There may be some changes for next year (regarding room inspections)
but it's not finalized yet
she said.
This year, EHS stopped providing notification as to when they would be conducting room inspections, but because of a negative response from students, EHS will resume prior notification, a method that has been used for several years, he said.
I struggle in my own mind with the fact that when we do room inspections
we are actually trampling into somebody's castle
