Richardson and Courtyard residence halls have both had issues with water damage this semester; however, the causes and severity of the damages are quite different.
The Courtyard incident took place in early January, and was caused by a water line break, according to Walter Hardin, facilities manager at Winthrop University. In the Richardson residence hall, a sprinkler head was damaged, and poured water out into the hall. The damage in Richardson, which Hardin estimates to be around $20,000, was less significant than that of Courtyard. While Hardin does not know the cost of Courtyard repairs, as it is done through the real estate agency that leases the building to Winthrop, about eighty students had to be removed from the building for the rest of the semester; whereas, no students in Richardson were permanently displaced. “The problem with courtyard is that unlike richardson, which is made up of concrete and cinder block, Courtyard is made up of sheetrock, and carpet and all of that stuff got wet,” Hardin said. Hardin said that the repairs to Courtyard will most likely be completed by the end of May, and they will definitely be ready for students to move into for the fall 2018 semester. Casey Tullos, director of residence life, said that the Richardson repairs have already been completed. “Fortunately for us, the damage to the rooms, took the long weekend, from Friday through Monday, for things to dry out, so students were welcomed back into the space if they chose to come back, because for some students we offered them the choice to stay in their new space that they had been assigned. There isn’t anyone at this point who couldn’t go back to Richardson if they wanted to,” Tullos said. Tullos and Hardin both credit the minimal damage done to Richardson to Liz Moore, the Residence Life Coordinator for both Richardson and Lee Wicker. “She immediately mobilized her RAs to not only evacuate everybody from the building, but she got everybody to get their bath towels out and they rolled them in logs and put them underneath everyone’s doors and the elevators,” Hardin said. Hardin said that the steps Moore took were important, because the last time that there was a sprinkler head that went off in Richardson- about three years ago- water was squeegeed into the elevator shaft, causing damage to the elevator shaft, creating damages that cost $30,000. “She mobilized her people, she saved the elevators, she saved a lot of people’s personal stuff with quick thinking,” Hardin said. All of these incidents happened within the first seven months of Tullo’s first year as Director of Residence Life, and she said that she is grateful for how well her staff handled the situation. “ It has just been an unfortunate series of events, so things that you can’t anticipate, but quite frankly it’s the reality of being responsible for facilities, so unfortunately things break, and people make mistakes and we have accidents that create these kinds of accidents, so yes it has been a very interesting introduction to my first year at Winthrop, I am very fortunate that i have a very experienced team that works for me because they have handled things amazingly well,” Tullos said. Winthrop is insured through the state of South Carolina, so the damages to Richardson were covered, and the school only had to pay a $5,000 deductible. Courtyard is also insured through the insurance agency that owns it, and the damages are being taken care of through that agency, according to Hardin. Currently, all students are now in permanent living situations for the rest of the semester. “Winthrop has one of the most beautiful campuses in the state and we have some really old buildings but we do our best to keep them up because we in facilities management are all about the student experience and we do everything we can within our powers,” Hardin said.
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Winthrop University students were evacuated from the Richardson Residence hall at 11:57PM on Feb. 7. The cause of the evacuation was a damaged sprinkler head from the fire alarm system, according to Winthrop Police. This incident is not related to the pipe burst in the Courtyard Residence Hall that happened in January nor the minor pipe burst in Lee Wicker that happened this past weekend. On the night of the incident, the complainant who was a seventh floor Residence Assistance reported that they heard a hissing noise from the hallway at approximately 11:45 and then saw the sprinkler pour out water. The water continuously poured from the sprinkler between rooms 719 and 721, eventually pouring down the elevator shaft. Floors seven, six and five saw immediate damage from the water. The officers dispatched cut the water supply and used a wet vac to attempt to minimize the damage. According to the police report, the reporting officer originally received conflicting reports on the cause of the sprinkler damage. Kenneth Scoggins, the Chief of Winthrop Police said that Lieutenant Wiles, the investigative officer at Winthrop Police, began conducting an investigation, and it was found that the sprinkler was damaged by a student swinging their keys in the hallway. The student will not face charges. “If you are looking at an offense, intent plays such a big part. It is only a chargeable criminal violation if damage was intentional, and from what we have found so far it was not, so the rest of the situation will be handles through the dean’s office,” Scoggins said. Students in Richardson were able to see the damage from both inside and outside of the building. Yogi Patel, a business administration major lives on the first floor, but was still able to see some damage. “From behind the building, water was falling out of the vents from the sevenths floor down. We were pulled away from behind the building by the RAs because of safety hazards,” Patel said. Timothy Hinson, a psychology major said that at the time, the students did not know what was happening and were not prepared to evacuate the building. “They kept telling us different times that everything would be fixed, but it was obvious that the problems would not be fixed by those times. Everybody thought it was a fire drill, so most people were not prepared for the weather or classes the next morning. They were very nice to open Sims and Thomson for us to go inside of and stay warm. The RAs were effective at keeping us from panicking,” Hinson said. According to Scoggins, facilities roughly estimates the damages to be $20,000. Campus Police is still investigating the situation. Published in The Johnsonian
Rural parts of South Carolina have been in a battle to receive an adequate education for over 65 years. Summerton, SC was the setting for Briggs v. Elliott, the first of the five cases in the famous Brown v. Board of Education supreme court case in which it was decided that the “separate but equal” ruling allowing segregated schools for so long was unconstitutional. The Brown v. Board of education ruling was not the end of the rural south’s struggle. 50 years after the case, students in these poor rural areas made up of mostly minority students are still falling behind. These rural underfunded school districts stretch along interstate 95 and were dubbed “The Corridor of Shame” by a documentary that came out in 2007. These districts decided to come together and file a suit against the state. According to the documentary, Abbeville County School District v. The State of South Carolina had 36 plaintiff school districts. 75 percent of schools in the plaintiff districts are below average and the high school dropout rates are between 44 and 67 percent. In 2005, the court ruled in favor of South Carolina, stating that South Carolina was providing a minimally adequate education. The plaintiff districts decided to file motions to reconsider in 2006 but the case was dismissed; in 2007 the 36 school districts voted to appeal their case to the South Carolina supreme court. In 2014, The State reported that the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled the state failed in its job to provide students with a minimally adequate education and mandated state legislators fix the problem. LaRaven Temoney, a McNair scholar at Winthrop University has been conducting research to determine if the conditions in the corridor of shame have improved since the ruling. After comparing data using variables including state scholarship eligibility, amount of teachers with advanced degrees, teacher salaries and unemployment rate, Temoney concluded there has not been an increase in the quality of education in the area. “With the trends that I was able to see, I found that even when you gave an equal playing field for corridor of shame schools and not corridor of shame schools, the corridor of shame schools still underperformed even with wiping out unemployment rate, or per capita income, it still showed vast differences between them,” Temoney said. It’s not only in quantitative data that the remaining academic deficiencies can be seen. Kayla Newsome, a psychology major, went to Hartsville High School in the Darlington County School district, one of the 36 counties that filed in the suit. Newsome said that she could see a lot of problems with the structure of the school. “There was mold and mildew in almost every building and every time it rained there were widespread leaks. A ceiling in our newest classroom building caved in and there were holes in many of the buildings,” Newsome said. Newsome also said that despite having a good International Baccalaureate (IB) program, the school lacked a lot of resources, especially for students who were not a part of the program. “I feel as though I had a lot of educational opportunities through the IB program, but it was very clear that students who took regular classes were at a severe disadvantage. Our library had very few text resources for students to use. So few that IB students were given access to the Coker College library so that we could do our research,” Newsome said. Austin Spencer, a freshman political science major went to Dixie High School in Abbeville County, the district in which the court case is named for. Spencer said that the school was blatantly underfunded, to a point where they didn’t have a librarian. “Our librarian retired my sophomore year, so the librarian in the elementary school in our district doubled as our librarian and their librarian, so not all the time did we have a librarian on campus,” Spencer said. The school had no AP or IB classes, and there were very minimal class options and even less teachers. Altogether, Spencer said the school has four English teachers, three math teachers, and one spanish teacher. Spanish was the only foreign language that students had the option to take. “If you want to go to college you have to supplement your classes with going to Midlands Tech, but that was only if you could afford to do so, and not many could. That really stunted a lot of people's ability to be able to go to college,” Spencer said. As for future improvements, Temoney said that some state legislators attempting to pass legislation to solve the issue, but there has also been a new ruling stating that the districts no longer have to follow the mandate. “There are some legislators who are working on trying to get more funding for these schools and attracting higher quality teachers. However, the mandate was recently dismantled so technically, they are not required to follow the supreme court ruling anymore,” Temoney said. Temoney went to school at Sumter High School- part of the corridor of shame- and said the ruling to dismantle the mandate is disheartening, because of the adverse effect the issues at these schools have on the people who attend them. “It hurts my heart because with me personally being from the corridor of shame, that put me at a disadvantage. I know if some people aren’t blessed to receive other opportunities to even the playing field, that it can have a long term effect on them. Because in America we like to say that no matter what is thrown at you, you can overcome it, but there are certain things like your education that can prevent this. If your experience as a child is really poor compared to other people, that can put you at a disadvantage for years and that is something that you may not even be able to shake off even as you grow up, so it is a little sad that they don’t have to follow the mandate anymore. There is still so much that can be done,” Temoney said. Students who go to school in the Corridor of Shame also have lasting effects once they get to college. Mark Dewalt, chair of educational research at Winthrop, said that college students who went to these schools may be at a disadvantage once they get to college. “Less access to technology will impact them in college because, if you look at a school like Winthrop, everything is on the computer so these students need to make sure they are seeking the help they need to overcome that barrier. They also have experienced less advanced courses and tend to be behind in things like math or other advanced courses,” Dewalt said. Dewalt also said coming from the corridor of shame will not only affect their schoolwork, but their social life as well. “With being near Charlotte we are in a metro area, so coming from a rural area will make them wonder how they fit in,” Dewalt said. Temoney said despite her success with getting into the McNair program, she still has issues with adjusting and being caught up with her peers. “I noticed that when I was in school, I didn’t learn a lot of grammar rules so when it comes to writing I need extra help and I take longer to come up with things. That is something that happened as a child, that I didn’t receive as much education as people in that area. It is definitely an adjustment. Especially because most of that area is rural for people who were raised in those rural areas you don’t have access to that many things so when you come to college it is like a whole new world. You are out of the country and you’re in the city and you’re exposed to so many different things and so many different people. At first it can be really hard to adjust because it is like a culture shock,” Temoney said. Both Temoney and Spencer said that despite their backgrounds being less than ideal, they feel where they went to school shaped them into who they are today. “I feel like corridor of shame students have more of a hunger for learning and we know all that we have been through and we know that we had all of these disadvantage growing up, so it’s like when we come to some place like Winthrop where it is so inclusive and there are so many opportunities for us, we are more willing to go after things after getting comfortable and situated because we know we didn’t have these opportunities beforehand so we are going to take advantage of them knowing that we can now,” Temoney said. Spencer said that he was glad he chose Winthrop because it made the transition easier. “Most students don’t go to college and if they do, they go to tech or vocational school, so it really was a shock when I came here. I think it’s really great that I came to Winthrop as opposed to a bigger school like Clemson, because I would not have been able to handle Clemson. That would have been too much of a jump from where I came versus that place. This is in equal parts great and awful that I came from such a small background. It’s great because it gives you that perspective, because you don’t realize how bad it can be unless you’ve been in that situation. It’s great to have that perspective and see that going forward, but simultaneously you always wish you had something better or you always wish you had grew up somewhere better,” Spencer said. Newly elected police chief Kenneth Scoggins outlines his plans for the Winthrop University Police Department Kenneth Scoggins said that he has always wanted to be a police chief, and in December, the Winthrop University Police Department finally gave him the opportunity to live out that lifelong dream. “Every officer has a dream of one day becoming a police chief. I could have retired nine years ago but I am just not ready to retire yet. Applying for the position of police chief just seemed like the most natural progression in my career and it is something I have always wanted to do,” Scoggins said. With his newfound power as head of WUPD, Scoggins said that he is looking forward to identifying ways to improve the department. “The department is a very good department that has always been headed in the right direction. It’s not like I am coming into a corrupt police department that needs help overcoming a lot of trouble. When chief Zebedis handed the department over to me after his retirement, we were doing a lot of great things anyway and I just want to continue with that. One of the biggest things that we need to do here is first we need to identify the areas that we are doing good and continue to do those things and find the areas we need to improve in. That is a daily conversation with the folks that work here. It is not all me, it is their ideas,” Scoggins said. He laid out some objectives that included officer recruitment and retainment, achieving accreditation, technological advances, community engagement and communication. Recruitment and Retainment “One of the things that we do need to work on is to improve our recruitment initiatives for our police officers because recruitment was not something that we did much of in the past. It is difficult for not only this police agency but other agencies as well to recruit, hire and retain good people. I want to hire officers here that are a good fit for Winthrop, for campus police. I don’t want to hire someone just to have a body in a uniform. We do have to write tickets, we have to make arrests, we have to tow cars, but the biggest part of what we do as campus police officers is customer service oriented and I have to identify and hire people that I am confident that fit that bill that are up to the challenge to give excellent customer service. I am not going to waste the university money by putting the wrong person in a uniform,” Scoggins said. In terms of the types of officer he would qualify as a good fit, Scoggins said there is no one size fits all profile for the type of officer that would benefit the Winthrop community. “I don't have a generic idea in my mind of exactly what that good fit is, because that good fit actually comes in all different sexes, shapes and colors. I want as close as I can get to a diverse police department that represents the diversity of the community. I think Winthrop has got a very diverse community and you can’t take a bunch of old white guys and police diversity. I want as diverse a police force as I can get. I want someone that is patient, kind, understanding, assertive when they need to be, forceful when they need to be. I want someone with excellent communication skills, not only in writing- although that is important- but also someone that is able to communicate one on one, sit down and have a conversation and talk through an incident,” Scoggins said. Accreditation The accreditation process started last year under former Chief Zebedis, and Scoggins said he would like to finish the job soon. “Another objective that we are looking at is to continue our accreditation process. We are this close to finishing but it seems like you just get caught up so much in the business of the day. Sometimes things are kind of placed on the backburner until you come back to it. But that is something I want to do on short order,” Scoggins said. Technological Advancements In the age of technology, Scoggins said that WUPD is taking steps to keep up to date. “We are working on technological advancements to campus police and as we speak we are installing our new computer systems in our cars. That will allow officers in the field who are doing work pulling people over and checking tags and running plates and stuff like that, instead of having to call into the office to get the information all they have to do is turn around and punch it in the computer and it comes right up. We are installing scanners in printers in the cars.” Scoggins said that this will help make the officers jobs easier as well as the campus community’s life easier. For instance, in an accident report situation the scanners in the car will allow the officer to scan a license which will then populate information into the form and print it out for the person to take right then and there. Previously, it would take an officer 10-15 minutes to fill out the report and the person in the accident would then have to come to the office later to pick up the accident report when it was done. Community Engagement and communication Scoggins said that he would like campus police to be more involved in the community. “Another thing I wanted to do was have more officer visibility. I want the campus community to be able to recognize their campus police officers, I want them to know their officers by name and I want for more than the students and staff just to see a car driving down the road,” Scoggins said. The new police chief said that he also wants students to feel informed and feel comfortable with voicing their concerns to him. “ If we aren’t getting feedback, we just assume we are doing everything right. I think feedback is so important and I encourage that, absolutely I encourage that and I am not offended or deterred by feedback because something that someone brings to me as a concern is something I may not have considered it or thought about it.I am absolutely approachable and I actually answer my own telephone so if somebody calls or sends an email I will always return it. I encourage the students to tell us when they feel that we are not doing a good job in a particular area because I want to straighten it out,” Scoggins said. The Winthrop police department is also working creating more avenues for students to get news and voice their concerns. “ I probably am sending more faculty and staff and all student emails today then maybe we have done in the past because I think it is important to send certain information out. Winthrop PD has a Facebook page that I encourage the students to like. Some of the information is repetitive because I put it out in email and on Facebook but someone who may say it in one place might not see it in the other place. I actually went online and opened a new Twitter account. I want to be able to connect with students. So now students will receive information not only in email, but on Facebook and Twitter as well. I know that social media is very important generationally now and it is a fact of life. That is something that historically people my age weren’t involved in so I am trying to up my game in that area as well,” Scoggins said. “Campus police never intentionally holds necessary information from anybody. I want to be completely transparent with journalists and the media. I believe in transparency because when something is going on, if I give you the facts as I know them at the time and i am honest, that is good for everybody,” Scoggins said. Scoggins said he has high hopes for this new era of WUPD, and is excited to see where his career path will take him. “Not only is it an honor to be the new chief of police here but I am quite humbled by it as well because this department is about everybody that is on the other side of that door. We are here for the students. It is an honor to experience and I am really anxious to see what happens next.” |
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