SAMANTHA BLONS
Assistant News Editor
Scorching heat in Malibu over the Labor Day weekend drove Pepperdine students out of their dorm rooms to study, and for some, even to sleep.
Temperatures hit about 90 degrees in parts of Malibu over the weekend, but students say it felt much hotter on Pepperdine’s campus, especially in residence halls, which don’t have air-conditioning.
On Sunday night, it took sophomore Alison Clark about two and a half hours to fall asleep because her third floor bedroom in Rockwell Towers was so uncomfortably hot, she said.
“And even then I woke up every hour or so because of the heat, sweating in my bed,” Clark said.
The following night, Clark and some friends opted to sleep on the floor of an air-conditioned lounge in Rockwell Towers, rather than suffer another night of restless sleep.
“Lying on the floor was way better than sleeping in the heat,” Clark said.
Many students living off-campus endured even worse conditions. Calabasas and Woodland Hills residents dealt with triple digit temperatures six days in a row, topping off at 108 degrees on Labor Day.
Because of the holiday, many of the air-conditioned buildings on campus were closed. Some students sought refuge at the beach, where cool ocean winds and waves kept the heat at bay.
“I’d say it was like 15 degrees cooler [at the beach,]” said junior Emory Davis, who left his “sweltering” residence hall behind for the ocean this weekend. “It was a good way to cool down, and it felt great.”
The weather cooled as classes resumed this week, bringing Malibu back to more normal mid-70 degree temperatures. Calabasas too has been steadily dropping through the 90-degree range, and is expected to hover in the high 80s and low 90s next week.
But for on-campus residents, the weekend weather woes brought to light what some consider a serious deficiency in Pepperdine housing: adequate cooling capabilities. The rooms that Princeton Review labels “dorms like palaces” provided little refuge from the heat, especially on the upper floors in the various housing communities.
“I’m guessing it was probably over 80 degrees in my room,” Clark said. Though she and her roommate have a fan, “it still just moves around some really hot air.”
Pepperdine officials are noticing the rise in uncomfortably hot days, said Jim Brock, director of Housing. Though he said the department did not receive any formal complaints about the residence halls this weekend, “we definitely know it’s a major concern for people when it gets this warm.”
Brock said officials have begun to consider incorporating air conditioning units into the university’s next major construction project – renovating the freshman halls on Upper and Lower Dorm Rows, and demolishing most of Outer Dorm Row to make way for a new 450-bed building.
“We will be recommending that air conditioning be considered in the refurbished halls,” he said.
However, the project is still in the planning phase, and Brock doesn’t expect construction to begin for several years.
As for the students ditching their dorm rooms to sleep, Brock said he is “not surprised by that at all. I’d be doing the same thing.”
09-06-2007