THINGS ARE looking a little dull around Mr. Jefferson's University as of late. The University is now fully enforcing the recently updated International Fire Code. No flammable materials, like flyers, posters and pictures, can be placed on dorm doors and walls, and only 10 percent of door and wall space can be covered in "flame-resistant" materials.
This means, of course, that the University is now very, very boring.As nice as the heavy, dully-colored doors of on-Grounds housing are, one would generally like to see more than 10 percent of them covered with colorful flyers and pictures.
Door decorations are more than just first years' pictures of their high school friends. Decorations let students stand out as individuals in an otherwise blank, sterile dorm hallway. Numerous clubs, teams and sororities welcome their newest members by adorning the doors with signs and balloons. Now, unless these organizations only want to decorate with the flame-retardant paper provided by the RAs, they're pretty much out of luck. Or, perhaps these would-be door decorators could just tape all flammable materials to aptly-placed bulletin boards, or simply leave them piled in the middle of the room, as neither of those apparently constitute fire hazards.
But wait, you say. Bulletin boards? Wood structures, covered in paper, inches away from a door or a wall don't constitute fire hazards? Indeed, it is true. Doors can't be covered in paper, but students can have paper-covered bulletin boards. There can be no flammable objects on dorm walls, yet there can be piles of pictures, flyers, posters and other flammable materials on floors, desks, beds and virtually any other surface other than wall and door space.
Perhaps I missed the part of fire safety class where they said that fires only start on doors and walls.Understandably, the University is only trying to make life safer for its students. Concern over fire safety jumped during the 2002-2003 school year, after a first year set a flyer on his hallmate's door on fire. According to Housing's First Year Newsletter, 30 percent of all residence hall fires are "suspicious in origin (i.e. intentional fires and pranks)" -- a.k.a., on purpose. Call me crazy, but if a first-year boy wants to light something on fire, he'll find something to light on fire, regardless of whether or not it's taped to a door.Of course, the fire code is meant to protect students from more than just first-year boys. Accidents do happen, and the full enforcement of the fire code is an attempt to reduce the risks of a fire spreading throughout the dorms, not to mention save the University from a nasty liability suit. The effectiveness of these newly enforced regulations, however, is questionable. For one thing, the code states that the 10 percent of a wall that's allowed to be fun -- that is, covered -- must consist only of flame-resistant items. But if these materials are slow to catch on fire, why can they only cover 10 percent of the door? It seems to me that a wall or a door with a small amount of flame-resistant materials is as non-flammable as a wall or a door with a lot of flame-resistant materials.
Another problem lies in the enforcement of this ten percent rule. I doubt any student will be measuring their walls to find exactly what constitutes 10 percent, and it's equally hard for an RA to determine if a student has exceeded the limit, especially if decorations are spread throughout the room. As it will be nearly impossible to regulate this rule exactly, it's quite likely that students will unknowingly inch over that limit, stripping decorations down only when the fire marshal comes to town.Obviously, the University is at the mercy of the Commonwealth and the International Codes, and the Housing department has done an excellent job of trying to ease the transition into sterile, dreary dorm life. But the University and the Commonwealth have compromised on this issue in the past, and clearly, fire codes have previously been pretty loosely enforced without much consequence. Surely there is a compromise out there that keeps us safe, but still lets us have colorful, decorative fun. And if not, well, there's always off-Grounds housing.
Kristin Brown's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at kbrown@cavalierdaily.com.
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