Students frustrated at Paul Smith's College dorm with no heat, forcing residents to move

Описание: Students at Paul Smith's College are frustrated, and freezing, after the boiler in Franklin Hall broke, forcing students to move to a temporary dormitory during the repair process.

"It's cold. There's no heat coming in," said Tristian Olsen, a senior living in Franklin Hall. "For the past, like week, they've been coming to reboot the system, which has been helping. But I'm having to wear my winter clothes, and it's still cold in there."

Franklin Hall is located right next to Lower St. Regis Lake. The boiler started causing issues in mid-October and has since been repaired more than 10 times until it finally completely broke last week.

"It's finals," said Olsen. "It's a busy time of year, so hopefully it can get fixed sooner rather than later. But I guess it's all just a waiting game, really."

Christine Brennan is Paul Smith's dean of student life. She explained what the college is going through right now from an administrative standpoint.

"There's a lot going on now in terms of ordering and getting delivery and installation of large pieces of equipment. We hope for out in the next 48 hours what that timeline looks like," said Brennan. "In the meantime, we have asked students to move to another hall called Livermore Hall. While we figure out that timeline. The holidays are coming up. There's the tariff situation. There's a lot of different variables."

Brennan said students have until Tuesday night to move most of their stuff out. After that, the water in the building will be shut off to prepare for the installation of a new boiler. Students have the option to move to Livermore Hall, which is a dorm on campus mostly reserved for emergency situations, like this one.

"We are very sympathetic," said Brennan. "I know it's not easy for anyone, much less a college student, to have to pick up and leave in the middle of the semester. What I will say is once we get an idea of the timeline in terms of delivery and installation, we will be able to look at things like considering partial refunds if they were paying for a different level of housing."

Brennan said the college is also helping students pack up and is speaking with faculty to give Franklin Hall residents a bit of leniency during this time. But one junior living in the dorm, Caleb P., said people are keeping their morale high.

"The people of Franklin are a very hearty group, and we're all kind of sticking together and kind of helping each other through this," said Caleb P. "I know we're all kind of hanging out and having a good time, so we're making the best of it as we can."

Campus officials said they're not exactly sure yet when students can be living full-time in Franklin Hall again, but they're hoping it's within the next few weeks.