The case of the missing microwaves

For students who pack lunch or purchase food that needs to be heated, the microwaves around campus are an essential tool. So, when some of them disappeared for a short time last November, the impact was felt immediately.

Belle Moulton is an undergrad from Northern Vermont University, studying at UAA on the national student exchange program. She is pursuing a degree in international relations.

Last semester she was living in Eagle River and commuting to campus. She said money was tight, so she brought her own food to campus.

Moulton said she typically brought microwavable rice and beans and used the microwave by the vending machines in the Consortium Library.

But, she said, something went wrong.

“I showed up one day and went to warm up my rice and beans, and there was no microwave. It was gone.”

The experience was a frustrating one, she said. And not knowing if there were other microwaves on campus, she resorted to driving back home to Eagle River to eat, which she said became an added expense.

And Moulton wasn’t the only student affected. In an interview, Lorelei Sterling, head of access services in the Consortium Library, said that when the microwaves disappeared, she started getting requests from students to use their microwave in the break room for library staff.

She said they had to turn them down.

“We felt terrible, but there was no way we could accommodate students in our staff areas … it just isn’t practical or feasible.”

Sterling said she heard from roughly 10 to 15 students while the microwaves were missing.

She brought the issue up in a Senate Faculty meeting on Dec. 2 to Ryan Buchholdt, vice chancellor for administrative services, who happened to be attending.

At the meeting she said, “Students have been complaining quite a bit that all the microwaves on campus were removed, the public access microwaves … I do understand I think there are efforts to get them back. But to have them removed two weeks before the end of the semester isn’t great.”

She went on to say, “I just want people to know that the microwaves got taken away with no warning and no explanation to building managers.”

Buchholdt said that he had noticed some of the microwaves were gone and had intended to look into it. And that just prior to the meeting he found out about the issue.

He said that he had been talking to Vice Chancellor of Facilities Kim Mahoney about getting the problem resolved.

“[The problem] is fairly fresh for me, and I got several messages out to people to figure out what happened.”

By the end of that same day, the microwaves in the Social Science Building, Rasmussen Hall, the Professional Studies Building and library vending machine room were all replaced.

So, what happened to them? Where did they go? And who brought them back?

In an interview with The Northern Light, Heath Franklin, contract manager for housing and facilities, said that they had removed several of the microwaves that were next to vending machines in November because they had not been kept clean over the years and that they were in “bad shape” and “gross” inside. Also, he said that some were safety hazards because they had frayed power cords.

He said it was not clear who was responsible to clean them, or who even owned them, as several of the microwaves had just turned up over the years.

Not all the microwaves on campus were removed, though. Some belonging to specific departments and organizations were left alone, such as the microwaves in the Student Union and the one in the ConocoPhillips Integrated Science Building.

Franklin said the vending machine company responsible for all the vending machines on campus, Aurora Vending, agreed to take care of cleaning the ones next to the vending machines for a few months prior to a new contract, but the new contract did not include terms for them to continue maintaining them.

David Waver, executive director of housing, dining and campus services said that without someone to maintain them, “[The microwaves] became just difficult to manage [and] it wasn’t a good solution for students.”

“Heath came to me and said, ‘[Aurora,] they don’t want to manage these, it’s outside their scope and our contract, can we just pull the ones we operate? They’re not getting clean [and] we’re not capable of managing them well.’ And I said, ‘Heath, go for it … if it’s substandard and we can’t deliver something clean and hygienic, let’s just pull it.’”

Weaver said the microwaves on campus “evolved without a broader plan.”

“Somebody would say ‘Student Union: we sell hot pockets. we should have a microwave here.’ And so they bought one.” Or that someone would get a new microwave for their home and bring their old one to campus for people to use.

Weaver said that he “underestimated the importance of microwaves on campus,” and that shortly after removing them, he started hearing, “where did the microwaves go?”

He said, “Kim Mahoney in facilities kind of stepped in and said, ‘you know what, we can provide them … and we can make sure they’re clean.’”

In an interview, Mahoney said her team purchased some extra microwaves around the same time the ones around campus were pulled. She said she wanted to replace the one in the Professional Studies Building by the vending machines with a larger model, and her team had just happened to buy four, thinking they may have other places to use them.

She said the microwaves were not expensive, costing around $100 each. 

“Because [my team] bought four I was able to deploy four of them the same day that Lorelei testified at Faculty Senate. So literally a day did not go by … literally an hour went by and there were microwaves [back] after she testified. That was just an odd circumstance.”

Mahoney said she too had noticed that some of the microwaves were gone and had first heard of the issue at a Facility Space Planning Committee meeting — which she chairs — the day before the Senate Faculty meeting. 

Mahoney, who is in charge of the custodial contract at UAA, said that they added cleaning the four microwaves to their contract terms with the janitorial services.

She said it runs around $1,300 a year to keep the four clean, and that the other microwaves that belong to specific departments and organizations will need to be kept clean by their respective owners.

She added that there are paper towels located next to the microwaves that people can use to cover food and clean up spills as well.

Of the disruption and uncoordinated response, Mahoney said that “one arm of the administrative services did not know what the other arm was doing.”

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