The response to the Binford water leak in the Forum section of The Guilfordian missed the mark; the article written by Beth Bass on the same issue demonstrated sound reporting. I would like to correct some inaccuracies in Turi’s op-ed piece. Alleging that “Guilford staff should have prevented [the] accident” by not building the student apartments is akin to suggesting that parents should replace the pipes in their home in case one may break instead of constructing a nursery for the new baby. It defies sound financial resource management to fix things that are not broken.

The bookstore was tremendously helpful in replacing student books; however, Jon Varnell and Jerry Boothby provided the funds out of the facilities budget.

I received a call at 8:30 p.m. At that time, maintenance on duty was called to clean up and turn off the water. Maintenance arrived and swept up the water.

I echo the sentiment expressed by Joshua Payne when he said, “it could have happened to anyone.” Rolling with punches and dealing with setbacks are part of life. The students in Binford were understanding and should be commended for their attitudes in a less than desirable situation

Now, all of this being said, Campus Life and Facilities have learned two valuable lessons from this incident:

1) A facilities manager was not contacted. I could have helped this process as well by communicating with facilities management myself.

2) Campus Life should have moved students to other accommodations sooner, even if students were not making such requests.

I would like to close with a request that we have made before. If you have questions or concerns, come talk to us. We will freely admit when we have done something, or not done something, in error and discuss relevant changes.

– Aaron Fetrow, Dean for Campus Life