I was the one who cancelled my MIDI Music Production class yesterday.  The
ambient temperature in the room was in the low 50's, and wind was blowing
vigorously through the unmaintained windows.  It was my first day back
at Columbia after several weeks of convalescence (including a week in the
hospital), and we simply will no longer tolerate the environmental
conditions in our Prentis facility.

Apparently I contracted Legionnaires disease, which is an environmentally-
transmitted agent.  I may or may not have encountered it at Prentis, but
the episode made me acutely aware that we cannot continue to work in our
present circumstances.  There are real consequences.

Have either of you been down to see our part of the Prentis building
recently?  Stand outside our main office and look down at the floor.  It
is obvious where any semblance of "maintenance" stops (I have attached
below a picture taken awhile back showing where the floor-cleaning ends).
The walls outside our offices are caked with crud that has *never* been
cleaned.  Should we be doing this ourselves?  Do we need to add "maintenance
supervisor" to our job descriptions in order to get the most basic level
service?

In the past, we have been willing to accept a sub-standard physical
environment because we realize that Prentis is an older building with serious
physical problems.  However, we can now walk around nearly all other parts
of the building and we find well-maintained, well-lit, clean and pleasant
(and HEATED!) rooms and halls.  Our illusions of an irredeemable building
have been shattered.  We now expect better.

So:

	-- We will no longer be teaching classes when faculty and students
	alike wear winter coats for lack of heat.

	-- We expect that the vermin infesting our rooms will be exterminated
	(we have had several recent sightings of rats and mice, including a
	memorable visit during my graduate seminar a month ago).

	-- We assume that the leaks, wall-cracks, damaged windows, etc. will
	be repaired.

	-- We expect that regular cleaning and maintenance of our classrooms
	and hallways will take place.

	-- We expect to be treated courteously by the maintenance staff (we
	have been subjected to poor behavior ever since we have had the temerity
	to suggest that using our computers, phones and FedEx accounts for personal
	business by maintenance personnel is inappropriate).

We have complained and complained and complained about these problems for
years, but yesterday was particularly discouraging.  I'm still not fully
recovered from my pneumonia, and walking into a cold and disgusting room
was more than I could handle.

Brad Garton
Director, Computer Music Center

Our working conditions at Prentis Hall (never all that wonderful
in the first place) have been deteriorating dramatically over the
past few months.  The frustrating part is that University itself
has been the primary agent behind the most recent environmental
downturn.

This past weekend saw the straw that broke this particular camel's
back, however.  I am enclosing pictures to demonstrate just how
bad things have become.  Last Thursday, we had a *very* difficult
time teaching our classes because some construction project was
happening outside in the halls (no, we were NEVER informed about it)
that required the use of extremely loud concrete drills.  Today we
arrived at the Computer Music Center to discover the purpose of
the drilling.  Apparently a new cable tray for all of the studios
EXCEPT the Music Department rooms had been installed through the
hallway.  The already-depressingly-low ceilings are now about 6.5
feet high, and the tray actually extends several inches *below* the
main door to the CMC.  Dust and debris are, once again, everywhere.
No real effort at clean-up around our studios was done.

But our real shock came when we opened the doors to our studios and
classrooms and discovered that the drilling had knocked concrete
CLEAR THROUGH THE WALLS and giant chunks had fallen inside.  The
first picture shows a large piece that had fallen on our new Yamaha
Disklavier... we're not sure what the University's liability might be
as the Yamaha program is structured in such a manner that the pianos
are 'on loan' to us (and Yamaha plans to take them back for resale
later).  The second picture shows damage done to one of the
air-conditioning units I was required to purchase for the Center
*through* *my* *own* *fundraisng* *efforts* to provide a semblance
of a decent working environment.  At this point we don't know if any
of our computers were damaged.

WHAT WILL IT TAKE for the University to extend at least the common
courtesy of informing us when we're about to be blanketed in dust
and hunks of concrete?  We and our students -- undergraduate and
graduate alike -- are essentially working in an on-going hard-hat
area.  Will someone have to suffer immediate physical damage before
we are noticed?!?!

I might feel marginally better about all this if I believed that we
would be receiving any benefit from the construction.  I harbor no
such illusions.  The final picture below shows how the clean-up from
a previous construction project stopped -- literally -- at our threshold
(it still looks like this).

We are tired of working in such horrible conditions, breathing cement
dust and god-knows-what-else, keeping alert for falling chunks of
debris.  We are tired of watching every other part of the building
receiving attention, investment and renovation while we are ignored
and *trashed*.  I have always tried to be a good citizen in the
Columbia community, but I have had enough.  I have never been one
to make idle threats, and I hate the prima-donnish manner in which
I am now being forced to behave, but if nothing is done I will
close the Center.  Our students and my staff deserve better.

Brad Garton
Director, Computer Music Center

------- from Douglas Repetto
Something on the 4th floor exploded and flooded 313 with NASTY.
[students] Steve L, Victor, and Sasha were heroes and moved the equipment
out into 314. The piano is still in there, obviously. The floor is flooded.
So nothing's happening in there for a while. It smells like anti-freeze. Yumm.


------- follow-up from Brad Garton
Hey everyone --

Douglas just called me, apparently a pipe or radiator or something has
burst on the fourth floor of Prentis above one of our studios and it's
steamy and "raining" in the room now, kind of a nice lower-Amazonian
feel to the place. Facilities is on their way down, but we don't know
the extent of the damage yet.

A new iMac + new monitors (and Mackie mixer) were in the room, the
carpeting is destroyed. Deborah -- I'm cc-ing you because this is the
room where we keep the Disklavier.

Oh what fun. Douglas can give more details later (he has meetings with
students right now).

brad

------- follow-up from Aaron Fox
to Margaret, douglas, Rafael, Jon, Donald, Peter, Brad, Anne, Terence, Rider 

OK, enough of this.   Time for the Department to take a final stand.

Rafael, we are going to cancel all the classes that are currently taught in
Prentis, beginning immediately after Spring Break, explain that it is based
on safety concerns and concerns for the environmental quality -- so the
students can tell their parents all about the asbestos and flooding problems
in Prentis causing them to miss half a semester's worth of instruction --
grade them all based on whatever work they have done to date, and close the
CMC for business for the remainder of the semester or until these issues are
resolved.

We can't keep playing these games, getting no answers, having to put up with
the destruction of equipment, and potentially exposing our people to a deadly
environmental hazard.  None of us should have to work under such conditions.
The health, safety, and comfort of the students, faculty and staff who use
Prentis must be my paramount concern as Department Chair and I see no solution
here short of shutting the facility down and letting the university deal with
the consequences, which will no doubt include very bad publicity -- I do
wonder how many people know that Columbia students and staff work in such
appalling conditions.  I realize this will cause a serious crisis, but there
would seem to be no other way we can get -- once and for all -- a proper
accounting for the asbestos risks in the Computer Music Center, a proper
resolution of the flooding problems, and a proper restoration of the CMC
facility to a bare minimum standard of habitability.

I am also copying this to Margaret Edsall, Associ. VP of Arts and Sciences,
since this concerns both the health and safety of Music personnel and the
academic program of the Music Department.  I am not sure what can be done in
the next few days, but something must be done -- something major, not just
a paint-over and minimal air quality testing for non-asbestos toxins --  or
we have no choice but to close the facility.   These problems have been
happening regularly for years.  We have never been fully assured that the air
quality is adequate; we have never seen a proper report on the asbestos risks
in the building; and as Douglas makes clear (and as many of us have made clear
repeatedly for *years* now), the conditions in  Prentis are simply not
acceptable for a facility used for teaching and research.  No one should
have to go to work in fear for their physical safety.

I regret that it has come to this.   But we've been patient for far too long,
and Douglas and Brad have bent over backwards to be accommodating and
understanding.  This isn't peeling paint we're talking about.  It is a life
threatening situation.  It merits a substantial emergency response.

Aaron Fox
Chair, Dept. of Music

------- from Douglas Repetto
to Rafael, Jon, Donald, Peter, Brad, Anne, Terence, Aaron, Rider 
Dear Rafael,

I was just in my office after not being there for several days. I went to
use a piece of test equipment from my electronics bench and it didn't work.
It was covered in orange filth and the inside was wet. I then noticed that
a discolored spot in the ceiling that I have complained about multiple times
in the past was a lot bigger. It seems that sometime in the last several days
there was a serious leak from another pipe (or something) on the 4th floor
and it leaked all over my electronics bench! I even have a frying pan full
of the nasty orange water and white debris that came from the leak.

As I mentioned, this is a problem that I have complained about multiple times
in the past. As with other problems we have had, nothing has been done about
it. It seems that someone needs to get hurt or equipment needs to be damaged
before a problem will be addressed. That's really ridiculous and embarrassing.
I now have a bench full of crusty electronics gear (computer monitor, keyboard,
mouse, digital oscilloscope, paper archives, pen plotters, misc components)
that is covered with gross, smelly, musty orange powder that comes from who
knows where in the bowels of Prentis. I haven't yet tested it all because I
don't really want to touch it.

Obviously there are major problems with the plumbing in Prentis. Why do we
have to put up with this? Our classrooms and offices are constantly filthy,
getting flooded, bad-smelling, full of asbestos, have debris falling from
the ceilings, etc.

We also have a very large asbestos fabric covered duct in our office that is
slowly tearing loose and lots of plaster debris falling from the ceiling above
it. This too we have complained about multiple times. The last time we
complained some workers used duct tape and some plastic wrap to try to
contain the debris. That lasted about a month.

What in the world needs to happen before we get to work in a safe, clean
environment???


Douglas Repetto

Director of Research
Computer Music Center

------- from Rafael Then
Good afternoon. In reply to your e-mail regarding the asbestos testing in
your facility of Prentis Hall the following are the results rendered by Empire
Environmental Ltd.

§    Location Door/tiles                    Room     #318 - No asbestos present.

§    Location Door/tile glue                Room     #318 - No asbestos present.

§    Location Pipe insulation/riser         Outside #318 -  No asbestos present.

§    Location Plaster/stairwell wall        Stairwell “Y” - No asbestos present.

§    Location Floor/tile                    Room     #336 - Asbestos present.

§    Location Duct/ covering                Room     #318 - Asbestos present.

Two of the six bulk samples tested positive for asbestos containing materials.
The two bulk samples that tested positive were samples from the duct covering
in room #318 and the loose floor tiles by the doorway to room #336B. These
two will be abated on April 30, 2010.