Editorial: Run-around compromises university principles

We are not fans of wild goose chases. We are also not fans of chasing ghosts, which is exactly what we feel like we have been doing this week.

In the wake of the chemistry fire some weeks ago, one thing that concerned us was the failure of the university to provide a list of chemicals located in the room that caught fire. This begged the question, “If the university doesn’t know what chemicals are in that room, then how do they know what chemicals are located in other rooms in the department?”

So we immediately began investigating the existence of some sort of list of chemicals and their locations on campus. As it turned out, there was such a list on a computer in the chemistry department, according to the department’s Administrative Assistant Mary Kay Sherman.

However, in order to see this list, we had to talk to Assistant Vice President of Marketing Communications Randy Jolly, whom, we’ll remind you, had no knowledge of the existence of such a list. Nonetheless, we complied.

The real problem came when we got the permission of Jolly, went back to the chemistry department to claim our chemical list, and were told that we could still not obtain it. According to Sherman, she needed two things: something from Jolly saying we could have the list, and technology services to get the list off of the computer.

As we already said, we are not fans of chasing ghosts or wild geese.

Maybe all of this is just a series of unfortunate events or unfortunate timing on our part. However, this kind of run-around really makes it seem like we are involved in a large game of cat-and-mouse with the university.

Perhaps the administration is hoping we will get tired before we get what we want, or perhaps they are hoping they can run out the clock on the whole situation before we can get to the bottom of it.

Whatever the case may be, we will continue to uphold the tenets of this university, including the one about “fearless investigation.”