by Caleb Fort
Daily Lobo
State money for fire-safety systems, one of UNM's most important requests, did not make it on to the Higher Education Department's list of priorities, said Mary Kenney, associate vice president of facilities management.
However, Miguel Hidalgo, the deputy secretary of higher education, said the University still has a good chance of getting money for the upgrades.
The requested $5.3 million would be used to install sprinkler and alarm systems in Hokona and Laguna residence halls.
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It could also go toward alarms on the upper floor of Zimmerman Library.
"We should really be paying attention to those things," Kenney said. "We really want to make sure we are providing the safest environment for our students."
The education department takes requests from all colleges and universities in New Mexico and decides which ones are most important.
The department requests that money from the Legislature.
Instead of requesting money specifically for UNM's update, the education department will recommend a $20 million appropriation for infrastructure maintenance at all New Mexico colleges and universities, Hidalgo said.
"It stands to reason that there's a good chance that UNM will get the money," he said. "We don't want to just disregard the safety of students."
UNM's other capital priorities include the Cancer Research Center and a Native American Center.
Regent Raymond Sanchez said he wants updated fire equipment in place as soon as possible.
"I really don't want to be in a situation where we have an incident or a catastrophe, and everybody comes in and says we need to take the following steps," he said. "We should be doing the following now."
Student Teressa Specht, who lives in Hokona, said the dorms' fire systems should be updated.
"If the state's not concerned about our health and safety, it says a lot about their attitudes about education," he said. "I feel pretty endangered sometimes. They don't keep these buildings up at all."
Kenney said UNM chose Laguna and Hokona for the upgrade, because they are likely to be around for a while.
"You're never quite sure when a dormitory is going to get renovated or demolished," she said. "When you put that kind of investment into a building, you would like to not have it torn down the next year."
Laguna and Hokona do not have sprinkler systems.
They have alarm systems, but the alarms are not connected to a central system.
"We really want the response time to be as fast as possible," Kenney said. "We don't want it to be that someone has to hear the alarm going off in the building for anyone to know about it."
Student Aimee Deans, another Hokona resident, said she doesn't mind the old fire alarms.
"It doesn't really bother me," she said. "It's just not something I ever really think about."
Sanchez said there is no excuse to not update the fire systems.
"We have been forewarned that this is a potential problem," he said. "We've had the fire at the library. We've read about fires at other dorms."
