Samantha Krol and Annabel Pyne

Contributing Writer and Student Life Editor

They say dress for the job you want, not the job you have, but at ESU you have to dress for the temperature inside the buildings, not outside.

Buildings all over campus are too hot. From Gessner to Kemp Library, students are feeling the stifling heat. Classes start with an apology from a professor about the heat, but their hands are tied. What are we paying all this tuition for if not to have a comfortable environment when we are learning?

Going outside in the 75+ degree weather is a reprieve compared to the stifling temperatures inside. This past week, many teachers opted to allow students time outside or held classes outside entirely as that seemed like the best option of the time. 

These temperatures can threaten students’ grades. Students with scheduled grades or projects this week were affected by the heat.

“On Tuesday, when I had to present, I couldn’t think straight. Even when something went wrong, I physically couldn’t concentrate,” Victoria Klose said.

The temperatures also made students feel unsafe in an environment that should foster some level of comfort. Some students are affected by the heat more than not being focused. These kinds of temperatures could affect students’ wellbeing as well.

“I get migraines that make me lose vision and heat is a trigger and I couldn’t take an exam today,” Cassandra Gorman said.

In the library, all the students attempt to cluster around the limited fans in an attempt to remain cool, and even the library jokes during their Wednesday coffee event that they have “Hot coffee. Warm library.”

Throughout all this, there is a building that remains relatively temperature controlled. The Science and Technology Center (Sci Tech) seems to be on its own, a lone cool building in the sea of buildings that are too hot for students to handle. 

Although that raises the question, why Scitech? Classrooms should not have an average temperature of over 80 degrees.

And if that is the standard, if that’s what we have to put up with as students, you would think that the fans in all the Stroud classrooms would work, but even that seems too much to ask.

How hot is too hot? Will the rising temperatures continue for the rest of the semester, impeding student focus and studying just in time for finals week? Is the expectation that students just put up with this while they bake in the classroom?