Classes are over for the semester. Everyone is ready to get away and relax for the summer. However, summer isn’t quite here yet and the semester is not totally over yet either. That is to say, students and faculty are still busy finishing things up for the end of the year.

Since it is technically still spring, The Chronicle decided to do some spring cleaning of its own. We had a very full archive closet that contained newspapers from the 1990s to present. The closet had about 2,000 pounds of newspaper in it that we moved out to the middle of our office. Why? Because where else could we put that much newspaper?

The problem with that is that our 4-foot-tall pile of newspapers is the biggest fire hazard you’ve ever seen. Not only is it really tall, it is also about 8 feet across one way and 4 feet across the other way.

We of course realized that a pile of that size could not possibly stay in the office too long. So a work order was faxed to the Plant Department on April 30, that clearly stated we wanted to recycle our pile of newspapers and that it was a very big fire hazard. Even the fire marshal came in and said we really needed to get rid of the pile as soon as possible.

So why is it still in the middle of the office? Well, because every time someone from the Plant Department comes in to say they’re here to take away our papers they also say that they can’t recycle them. Well, we want them recycled and we’d rather risk fire than not have our papers recycled. What happened to a greener Hofstra? Isn’t recycling part of going green? If it’s such a big initiative on campus, why can’t something as easy as recycling be done?

How many times are you going to tell us that we need to get rid of the humongous fire hazard in the middle of our office, but not do anything about it after we’ve called and asked many times and even faxed over a work order? We’ve had 2,000 pounds of newspaper sitting in the middle of our office for three weeks now. The semester is almost over. Maybe the pile will still be here in the fall. Welcome back Chronicle, your pile is still here!

Now all of this is not to say, that everyone in the Plant Department doesn’t do a good job. The custodians that work the night shift upstairs in the Student Center every evening and take care of the editors and The Chronicle office are great. They do an excellent job and we don’t know what we’d do without them. So, from The Chronicle, a great big thanks goes out to them.