terrapinsanity.com

The Diamondback reported on last week’s chemistry lab accident, in which two students were injured (thankfully not badly in the scheme of things) in an explosion as two acids being disposed of in a lab activity reacted violently in a waste receptacle. The essence of the campus message is, we never slacked off on implementation of safety procedures and we promise not to do so again.

A full accounting of what happened has still to be written, of course, and for all the expense involved at both state and federal levels one would expect a report to be thorough. (Local first responders get credit for a job well done, but really … deploying Department of Homeland Security helicopters and setting up hazmat gear two hours after the incident was contained was more than a little over the top. Guess if free tax money lets you buy a lot of toys you look for excuses to use them.) Early indications, however, are that this will be another campus issue swept under the rug.

The circumstances initially reported are as routine an activity as you will see in any class, and safe processes for waste disposal at this basic level have been thoroughly figured out for years. What is important is that the processes are known and followed. Obviously, this wasn’t the case last week. The truly awkward fact is: this incident happened in facilities run by the college whose breakneck merger last year cut administrative operations to the quick.

CMNS – the College of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences – came into being in the fall of 2010 after the Dean in Computer, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Steve Halperin, enacted a hostile takeover of College of Chemical and Life Sciences, riding roughshod over the process to get it done in time for what critics said was his – and then-Provost Farvardin’s – desire to claim a grand achievement in service of own personal ambitions. (As one department chairman stated publically: “We’re doing this for Steve.”) Last year was supposed to be one of assimilation between the two offices, but in reality Halperin did nothing but cut. The new CMNS dean (who arrived this fall) still has all the heavy lifting in front of him.

Among the many things Halperin gutted were facilities and business operations. He eliminated “duplicate” roles so that in many cases a single staff member would end up carrying the load for what had been job enough for two before. Among those people affected were the Safety Officers – those responsible for enforcing the safety procedures that were obviously ignored in this accident. Did Halperin’s facilities director (brought from his old CMPS side of things) not have enough capacity to give due diligence to more than double the responsibilities? Was he not familiar with the more-than-doubled facilities for which he instantly became responsible?

Were students just injured because of campus leaders’ haste and greed … or just incompetence?

We’ll be looking for the full report. We bet one will never emerge. Time will tell.