THE Volume 95, Issue 3
Q
UADRANGLE A Student Publication of Manhattan College Since 1924
January 31, 2017
www.mcquad.org
Pipe Repairs Behind O’Malley Library Enter Fourth Month
TRUMP HALTS ENTRY INTO U.S. FROM SEVEN MUSLIM COUNTRIES Rose Brennan, Taylor Brethauer & Stephen Zubrycky
Asst. Editor, Editor & Editor-in-Chief
Repairs to leaking pipes behind O’Malley Library started in November. Stephen Zubrycky/ The Quadrangle.
Stephen Zubrycky Editor-in-Chief
Repairs to underground pipes behind O’Malley Library are getting closer to completion, following a burst steam pipe which caused disruptions to the library and to Hayden Hall. The repairs, which were contracted out by Manhattan College last November to plumbing company Mr. Rooter, will cost the institution roughly $100,000, according to Andrew Ryan, P.E., the college’s Vice President of Facilities, who oversees the physical plant. “When the steam leak was identified, it requires excavation, which we don’t have the equipment for, so we brought a company in,” Ryan said about the college’s contract with Mr. Rooter. The bulk of the repairs were done over the winter intercession, to minimize disruption caused to students and faculty. Faculty and students in Hayden Hall over the intercession were affected by the repairs, including Constantine Theodosiou, Ph.D., dean of science. “The classes and offices were cold,
some people could not stay, and some people went home,” Theodosiou said. “It was a very uncomfortable thing for many of the faculty.” The leak was noticed by the staff of O’Malley Library last October and was reported to physical plant. Susanne Markgren, the library’s assistant director for technical services, first noticed the problem in early October. “In the very beginning, we noticed steam coming out of [the loading dock steps], and we were like, ‘that’s weird,’ so we called them, and they looked at it and then I’m not sure what happened, and then it continued,” Markgren said. Eventually, the steam began to creep into the building, causing water damage to the technical services office and even making the walls warm to the touch. “It did affect us quite a bit in the beginning, because […] it got quite hot, and the steam did go up the wall, and it provided damage in some of our offices,” Markgren said. Markgren and other employees in technical services also noticed a strange smell to the steam, which Markgren described as similar to that of sulfur.
“The smell of it was pretty bad,” Markgren said. Markgren said employees bothered by the smell were free to work in another part of the building if they felt they had to. Peggy McKiernan, a library assistant who works in technical services, said she was made sick by the smell of the steam. “I’m asthmatic so the smell was getting to me,” McKiernan said. As the repairs have pressed on, conditions in the library have improved. The physical plant department will repair any damage caused to the library by the steam leak when the repairs are finished. “If there’s issues, we’ll take care of it,” Ryan said. “If there’s any collateral damage that happened as a result of it, that has to get fixed. But we’re not going to go in and scrape and paint walls and everything else, when I’ve got a twelve foot trench that’s still open next to the building.” The contractors are still waiting on a fitting to repair a leaky water pipe which was discovered next to the steam line. Continued on page 2
President Donald J. Trump capped a busy first week in office with an executive order barring entry into the United States from seven countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The order, entitled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” will affect those attempting to enter the U.S. from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The order allows the Department of Homeland Security to admit religious minorities fleeing persecution from these majority-Muslim countries, including Christians. The ban will remain in effect for 90 days, while the U.S. Refugee Admissions program will be shuttered for 120. “Congress and the President both have a decent amount of power to set immigration policy, and it’ll be interesting to see what happens in the courts,” Assistant Professor of Government Margaret Groarke, Ph.D., said over the phone. “I think there’s some significant basis for the lawyers believing that some of what he’s doing in this order is illegal, or they wouldn’t have gotten stays from four different judges [Saturday].” Mehnaz Afridi, Ph.D., believes Islamophobia in America has been at an all-time high since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Afridi, who spoke to the Quadrangle over the phone, is an assistant professor of religious studies, and the director of the Holocaust, Genocide and Interfaith Education Center at Manhattan College. Afridi fears that rather than protecting Americans from radical Islamist terror, banning Muslims from entering the country may have the opposite effect. “As a Muslim, I get news from all over the world, and this is a field day for ISIS,” she said. Stiff backlash followed the order as protests erupted at airports across the U.S., including John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, where a number of Iraqi refugees had been detained. Students Shahed Ahmed and Haris Ali are against the order. Ahmed is the president of the Muslim Student Association, and Ali is the vice president. “When something so extreme happens, it’s always so surreal at first and you don’t understand it,” Ali said. “It doesn’t really get to you until it affects you personally.” Ahmed is particularly worried that President Trump will extend the order to where some of his family is, in Bangladesh. “I have relatives that are from Bangladesh, and they’re scared themselves because they have green cards, but now I know there has been an exception for green card holdContinued on page 4