Campus Watch: Maintenance site

VCU’s Access Committee will vote on a Web site so students and faculty can report maintenance problems directly to the facilities management office.

“This Web site would allow the VCU community to report these maintenance issues with the click of a mouse,” said Joyce Knight, coordinator for the Office of Disability Support Services. Knight plans to propose such a site at the committee’s next meeting.

Margaret Kelland, coordinator for the facilities management office on VCU’s Monroe Park Campus, said VCU gives students and faculty the option to report maintenance issues in three ways: calling the facilities management’s service center, sending an e-mail to “e89444” or reporting maintenance issues through the service center’s Web site.

Student safety and facilities maintenance are goals of every university. To monitor and ensure these goals, The Commonwealth Times has decided to become a watchdog for the student body. This is the fourth installment of the Campus Watch series with reporter Isac Crouch. His responsibilities will include visiting buildings to find where there may be obstacles to security or safety.

VCU, Kelland said, offers a Web site that allows students and faculty to report maintenance issues, but the site still needs some tweaking.

“The Web site that we offer has had its problems and not many people know about it,” she said.

Knight said the Web site she plans to propose at the meeting will be used for maintenance issues that relate to equal access to VCU’s programs and services.

“These issues include things like broken handicapped doors or elevators,” she said.

Mary Sampson, emergency coordinator for the University Police, said a Web site that could track specific issues with equal access to programs and services would be a productive solution to solving equal-access problems.

“This Web site would be a great idea especially for staff that notices a problem,” she said. “They can go to the site and report it to maintenance and then our officers wouldn’t find so many things wrong.”

Sampson said this Web site also would allow the disability support office to track each maintenance issue to insure that it is repaired.

“It is important that we know what is going on with equal access on campus,” Knight said. “With all the laws that public universities have to follow when it comes to equal access, this site would allow us to make sure that the university is always up to code with equal access.

“It is important that we act as a watchdog for equal access on campus.”