Hundreds of Boston University students in pajamas, robes and slippers crowded onto the sidewalk across from Myles Standish Hall after a fire alarm went off in the early hours of a Saturday morning – a periodic occurrence in on campus residences that frustrates students and police authorities alike.
Office of Residence Life director David Zamojski said consequences for falsely pulling a fire alarm are not taken lightly, because these matters are usually forwarded to the Office of Judicial Affairs.
“I think it is important for students to know that sanctions for malicious activation of a fire alarm system could be as serious as suspension or expulsion from the university,” he said.
According to flyers posted in Myles by the Office of Residence Life, “a pull-station on the second floor was activated” Nov. 5 at 1:45 a.m. Upon reentry, most students were asked to hold up their hands so the Resident Assistants could see if anyone was stained with the dye emitted by a pulled alarm.
School of Management sophomore Ginny Dominguez, who had to show her hands to enter, said the incident was “annoying,” but appreciated the RAs’ attempts to catch the perpetrator.
“I had no problem [holding up my hands],” she said. “It would be stupid of them not to check since that is the point of the paint.”
The Dean of Students Office offers a monetary award for information leading to the identification of the “responsible party or parties,” Zamojski said.
“Because of the disruptive nature of maliciously activated alarms, our experience has shown that students are concerned enough about fire safety to want to help us address such incidents right away – reward or no reward,” he said.
Dominguez said monetary incentive is one of the only ways to motivate students to come forward with information.
“Ideally anyone with information would just tell the ORL,” she said. “But that would never happen.”
SMG sophomore Stacia Kauffman said the university handles the consequences of fire alarms relatively well, but added that she has only experienced a few alarms.
“Since coming to BU, I have only been a part of three fire alarms – one planned and two unplanned,” she said. “Over the span of about a year and a half, that’s not too bad. The unplanned ones seem to happen at very annoying times, such as 2 a.m.”
Zamojski said the rarity of false alarms on campus is “testimony to the maturity of our students.”
As most students evacuate within minutes of the first fire alarm sound, Kauffman said students generally cooperate in these situations.
“I think students take it seriously enough to get out of the building,” she said. “No one is ever happy to have to leave the building, be it late at night or during a favorite show, but everyone does anyway.”
Dominguez said in her experience, students do not consider an alarm a real threat to their safety.
“The [Myles] evacuation went pretty smoothly,” she said. “Students don’t really take it seriously, but I don’t really see people doing anything stupid either. I think a small part of everyone is always wondering if maybe there really is a fire.”
Zamojski called the false alarms wasteful to the university, since multiple departments and resources are used unnecessarily.
“It’s every student’s responsibility to initially react as though we have an emergency,” he said. “When any alarm is activated, resources like the Boston Fire Department, Boston University Police, Facilities Management and Residence Life respond as though it’s an emergency.
“These resources are valuable to the community,” he continued. “And it would be unfortunate if they were unable to respond to more urgent matters because they’d been dispatched to a residence for what proved later to have been a false alarm.”
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