Spring breaks the Campus Center ceiling

A nearly 20-square-foot puddle of ceiling tile debris about 14 feet from the Liberal Arts, Human Adolescence Education and Individual Studies office was spotted on Apr. 3 in the Campus Center, remaining there for the next five days.

Debris and two tiles reportedly damaged by melted snow were left in the Campus Center until the Physical Plant cleared the area earlier on Wednesday morning, the first day back from break, and replaced the tiles later that night.

The Physical Plant currently considers the case to be a likely isolated incident. “There is no evidence of a bigger issue, since the past couple days of rain has not caused any leaks,” said Richard Edwards, Director of the Physical Plant.

Water stopped leaking from the ceiling around 2:00 p.m on Apr. 3.

On Friday, a broken tile was seen above the debris with slightly over half of the object still intact. The water-damaged object was dangling on its south side, with wires and pipes exposed above the ceiling.

Moist clumps of ceiling debris were piled on the top ledge of Student Senate Events Board 4 over an advertisement for the food pantry. Directly above the board was a hole where the original, nearly one-square-foot panel was missing from the ceiling grid.

Much of the ceiling debris, including two pieces of a panel, was located around a garbage can. The garbage can had a small amount of water and very little of the debris inside of it. Debris covered some of the gray molding around the trash can stretching to the CTR 207 data closet.

Edwards added that the Physical Plant seeks to scope out further damage by snow resulting in leakage across the Campus Center roof. “We have our roofer scheduled this week to look at this but sometimes the snow builds up higher than the flashing, and when it melts we get some leaking.”