Students exit Bill of Rights Hall during a fire alarm activation on Dec. 10, 2022. // Photo courtesy of Maria Valdez.
Hofstra University students living in Bill of Rights Hall experienced 11 fire alarms during the fall 2022 semester. Many of the alarms had been activated at night or early in the morning, leading to a growing discontent among students residing in the residence hall, who cited poor sleep and trouble focusing in class as a result of the disruptions.
The alarms were not fire drills and had been due to students’ actions, according to an email sent on Nov. 3, 2022, to residents by Doreen Dacilas, the residence director of Bill of Rights Hall.
William Sollins, the fire/life safety officer at Hofstra University, said that most of the activations had been accidental and were due to hair care products, excessive steam from the showers or burnt popcorn. The activations primarily were in different areas of the building – only one room set off the alarm twice.
“Only one emergency evacuation drill is scheduled per semester for our area,” the email sent by Dacilas read in part. “All other events were the fire alarm actually being set off due to various behaviors and actions taking place within our hall.”
Sollins said it was common for there to be more alarms during the fall semester as students settled into their residence halls, but the number in Bill of Rights Hall that semester was “above average.”
The fire alarms have been fully equipped and functioning as expected in the past three years, as recorded in Hofstra’s Annual Security and Fire Safety Report.
“The system gets checked quarterly,” Sollins said. “It’s passed all tests in the last few years.”
The alarm activations being accidental didn’t make them any less disruptive to students who live in the building. Some started preparing in anticipation of a fire alarm going off.
“If the fire alarm goes off, I’m not in the right state of mind, so I’ve been keeping my wallet and keys in an accessible part of the room,” said Yasmin Cardoso, a senior comparative literature and Japanese double major. “I also keep my backpack packed and my phone fully charged just in case it happens during the day.”
Other students became almost unphased due to the frequency of alarms.
“After so many alarms, you start knowing that there’s no real emergency, so you kind of just give up. You get tempted to stay in the room,” said Sybil Eklof, a senior history and political science double major.
Mitchell Schare, a clinical psychology professor at Hofstra, affirmed these responses from students.
“The problem is [the alarms] become an annoyance rather than meaningful for the average person, but then we have people who are much more highly anxious than others,” Schare said. “How do they know when the alarms are important versus not important? They might even become more stressed out by that. People like that might not want to live in the dorms anymore.”
Resident assistants in Bill of Rights Hall received complaints from students but are at a loss for how to help.
“I wish I could be more helpful. Residents come to me asking if I know why they’re happening or if I can do anything to stop it. I don’t really have the power to stop it or investigate what’s happening,” said a resident assistant who requested anonymity. “If you’re not on duty, we’re just regular residents. We’re sleeping or in the shower when they go off, and we get annoyed too. And then we still have to go downstairs like everyone else.”
Along with heightened anxiety and irritability, students who live in Bill of Rights Hall experienced deprivation and disruption of their sleep.
“It’s woken me up quite a few times when I’m trying to sleep in after working,” said Alexandra Kline, a junior English major with a concentration in creative writing. She is a resident safety representative on campus who typically works an overnight shift.
Schare, who also works with the Phobia and Trauma Clinic at Hofstra University’s Joan and Arnold Saltzman Community Services Center, emphasized how the disruption of sleep can impact students’ wellbeing.
“One of the things we’ve learned about working with traumatized people is we oftentimes have to work with their sleep habits first,” Schare said. “Without sufficient sleep, people become more agitated or anxious. It’s not really fair [to the students], it is upsetting and it’s not always easy to fall back asleep after this event.”
All students interviewed said that they have considered moving to another residence hall.
“If I were to spend another year at Hofstra, there’s no way I could choose Bill of Rights again. It’s close to the Student Center, but so is Alliance,” Eklof said. “It’s definitely a deal breaker for me to have to worry about the alarms.”