Inadequate fire protection in four buildings in the Nobel Park sends students home

Students at the Faculty of Arts have had an involuntary flashback to the corona era, complete with online teaching and the closure of the Friday bar. On Friday, 20 February, students from several degree programmes at several departments at the Faculty of Arts received a message on Brightspace with the disclosure that the faculty is forced to restructure all teaching that takes place on floor 3 and above in buildings 1461, 1463, 1465 and 1567 in the Nobel Park from physical teaching to online teaching throughout week 9. Since then, the Faculty assessed that it would be necessary to reschedule teaching for another week. The reason is insufficient fire protection in the form of a lack of warning systems on several floors in the mentioned buildings.

Niels Lehmann, vice-dean for education at the Faculty of Arts, elaborates on the background for Friday's decision to restructure teaching. 

"In connection with a review of the capacity of the premises, we became aware that there’s a need to renew permits from the fire authorities because the premises have changed use."

As of today, an alarm system has only been established on the building's lower two levels. Therefore, the message from the fire authorities is that it’s currently not allowed to be more than 25 students per floor above level 2 in the buildings in question, Niels Lehmann informs.

Has been missing for several years

Exactly how long this deficiency has been in place, the vice-dean cannot answer. But it’s a matter of several years, he replies.

When asked whether students and staff have been in danger in the buildings as a result of a lack of an early warning system and inadequate permits, he replies:

"Fortunately, the fire authorities have assessed that due to the large staircases, there are very good escape routes. Of course, we’re happy that we have never had to use these as escape routes, but the only responsible thing to do was to send the students home for online teaching until we could find a solution," he says. 

"In the long run, the solution is to set up warning systems on all floors. But it can only be achieved in the autumn semester," says Niels Lehmann.

The faculty is working with the fire authorities, the municipality and the building owner FEAS to update the necessary permits and to create a temporary solution for the rest of this semester.

"We expect that the temporary solution will consist of deploying fire guards on the affected floors during teaching hours. As approval of this solution requires that an application for the final solution has been submitted, we unfortunately cannot get the permit in place next week. We will therefore have to live with another week of online teaching, but we expect that regular teaching can resume from 9 March," Niels Lehmann says.

The vice-dean cannot put an exact figure on how many students are affected by the change. But he informs that it’s specifically affecting 5 classrooms that are used for teaching education from different departments. In addition, a single exam was moved to another room. Finally, the Friday bar at History of Ideas and Philosophy, Pantarei, is temporarily closed because it’s above level 2.  

Niels Lehmann says that employees can continue to work in the affected buildings.

"This is because employees are expected to know the escape routes in the buildings. But you can't have the same expectations of the students," he explains.

Misses the study environment 

Jonathan Friis is studying philosophy at the Faculty of Arts, and on Friday, he received the news that teaching has been rescheduled for the entire week 9. However, as he’s currently working on his supplementary subject in computer science, his teaching isn’t affected. But despite that, it affects his student life, he says.

"We are a lot of students who have now been kicked out of our study environment," he says, explaining that he usually meets with his fellow students in building 1465, where philosophy and the history of ideas are located. 

"Yesterday we studied at a café downtown, in addition to that, our Friday bar is also closed down indefinitely," he says, adding that it also applies to Classical Studies, which also don’t have access to their study environment. 

"If it's only a week, then it's probably something we'll have to survive," he says, adding that the students don’t feel confident that the changes will only last this week, and that they lack information about access to the study environments in the affected buildings. After the interview, the students were informed that online teaching and the lack of access to study environments have been extended until 9 March.

This text is machine translated and post-edited by Lisa Enevoldsen.