UNIVERSITY CONSERVES ON POWER

Southeast Missouri State University officials can be excused for being a little Scrooge-like this Christmas, as they shut down most campus buildings over the Christmas-New Year's break to save costs.

University offices closed at 5 p.m. Friday for the holiday break, with most campus buildings to remain closed until Jan. 6. Spring semester classes begin Jan. 13.

The university's Board of Regents approved the conservation measure after the university's state appropriation was slashed by $942,000 Oct. 1 to help the state finance court-ordered payments for Kansas City school desegregation.

Art Wallhausen, assistant to the president at Southeast, said Friday the university hopes to save $50,000 from a combination of the holiday shutdown, fee changes to better recoup costs associated with next year's summer camps and other programs, and other possible energy conservation measures.

The exact savings from the shutdown is hard to predict, he said. A lot depends on the weather. "You save more being closed in real cold weather than you would if it were a warm week," he said.

During the holiday break, most university buildings will be completely closed, with the heat turned to 50 degrees.

In past years, university offices generally have been closed for all but three of the 16 days.

But because university offices did operate, albeit briefly during the holiday period, the university had to keep the buildings heated at a comfortable level, Wallhausen said.

By being closed down the entire holiday period, "it lets us close the entire campus a whole lot more strictly than we have done in the past," he said. "This way we can leave the (university) power plant in a low output mode the whole 16 days.

"There will be people in the power plant there will be some activity there. But we won't be burning as much coal and making as much steam."

Wallhausen said that shutting down the university over the entire holiday period is disruptive. Faculty, he said, have had to get their grades in earlier.

Also, in the past the university's recreation center had been open to the general public over the holiday break.

But this year, because of the cost-saving measures, the center will remain closed to the public. Kent Library also will remain closed throughout the holiday period.

People who want to register for spring semester classes can do so the week of Jan. 6-10, when the university reopens, Wallhausen said.

Some buildings will be open on a minimal base during the holidays, university officials said.

The Show Me Center will be open for the Christmas tournament and university basketball games. Three residence halls Towers North, Cheney Hall and Myers Hall will also be open over the holiday period.

Paul Carr, Residence Life director, said the dormitories will remain open to accommodate students over the holidays.

"We have a number of students on campus from foreign countries who have very limited places to go over the break," said Carr.

Those students, he said, generally live in Cheney and Towers North. "What we have is a number of those students, as well as a number of American students, who have jobs in the area and have opted to stay over the break."

Carr said the university must heat the entire halls at Cheney and Towers North because there is no way to heat individual floors.

But since Myers Hall was renovated, each room has separate heating controls.

The men's basketball team, which lives on one floor of Myers Hall, will be back on campus over the break.

In addition to that floor of Myers Hall, a lounge in the residence hall and another in Cheney will be set up with barracks housing. "It will just be a row of beds, bunked in some circumstances" to provide additional housing for students, said Carr.

He said it's difficult to know how many international students, entering Southeast for the spring semester, will arrive over the holiday break.

"Part of our problem is that because of the problems in communication internationally and difficulty in securing flight information, we don't always know who is coming or when they are coming," said Carr.

But he predicted that perhaps 150 American and international students will be on campus over the Christmas-New Year's break.

Carr said all other residence halls on campus will be closed over the break and the heating in the buildings turned down.