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SPRING 2025 | ISSUE 1
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BIPOC students form community around hair care
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Plattsburgh firefighters showcase the aftermath of a simulated dorm room fire at Emergency Preparedness day Sept. 25, 2024.
Cardinal Points file photo
UP cracks down on fire alarm misconduct BY MICHAEL PURTELL Editor in Chief
Going through dreaded fire drills with droves of other students at the dorms is a universal experience for college students. SUNY Plattsburgh’s fire drills have been extended by new procedures in response to a less-than-ideal student response to the alarms during a recent fire. A fire in deFredenburgh hall, contained to a single dorm room, revealed to University Police that 25 students across 21 rooms remained in the building after the fire alarm sounded. The fire was a result of a disallowed candle, and led to damages in excess of $10,000. At least one student received burns in the blaze. To try and keep students from putting themselves in danger in the event of a
fire, UP has decided fire drills would now include officers checking all rooms for students who did not participate in the drill. “We have a responsibility at the campus to enforce the fire code,” UP Chief Patrick Rascoe said. “Part of that is that people have to evacuate in the event of a fire alarm.” The focus on ensuring students vacate buildings during fire alarms comes from UP, with Rascoe specifically designating his officers to enforce the checks. “We are primarily in charge of enforcing the Student Conduct manual, however any campus employee can do it, and so can housing,” Rascoe said. The new procedure involves two officers, standard UP personnel for a fire alarm, reporting to the building where the alarm sounded. One officer checks
the building’s panel and one goes to the site of the alarm, to ensure the fire isn’t at high risk to spread. Once the fire has been confirmed as contained, or in the event of a drill the alarm is silenced, the officers begin clearing all the rooms in the building. The act adds roughly 30 to 45 minutes to the process of clearing the building for students to reenter. UP is trying to shorten the process by enlisting the help of Housing and employees such as CA’s and CD’s, Rascoe said. Rascoe and UP are also not using the room checks to indiscriminately punish students for offenses unrelated to fire violations, in an attempt to respect student privacy. “It’s an enforcement that is targeted and narrow in scope,” Rascoe said. “We’re not
going to use it to search through drawers and whatever else. When we evacuate people, we’re doing it for the sole purpose of getting people out of there.” UP will use the checks to identify and issue citations for other fire code violations, like covered smoke detectors, chained extension cords or candles. Repercussions for fire violations can include probation loss of privileges to reside on campus. The Student Conduct Office adjudicates any related charges. The amount of fire alarms and drills has not increased due to the deFredenburgh fire or the new procedure, Rascoe said.
Email MICHAEL PURTELL cp@cardinalpointsonline.com
Academic researchers fear political influence on grants BY OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ, TERRY CHEA and MAKIYA SEMINERA Associated Press
President Donald Trump’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in programs receiving federal money has thrown into doubt the future of research Kendra Dahmer has been doing on intestinal parasites in India and Benin. Dahmer, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, has a grant from the National Institutes of Health, the single largest public funder of biomedical research in the world. The grant is supposed to cover her research through the summer of 2026, but now she wonders if that will be possible. She received diversity-based funding as the first college graduate in her family and a woman in science and, more broadly, she is uncertain how Trump’s anti-DEI executive order could affect support for her areas of study.
“There’s also this aspect of research that funds specific studies in specific populations that are now being deemed DEI,” Dahmer said. “So, like HIV research in Africa may be deemed DEI, malaria research, which also happens in low and middle income countries, may be considered DEI. And these are really important diseases that kill hundreds of thousands of people every year.” Two days after Trump signed the executive order on DEI on Jan. 21 researchers became even more alarmed when the White House called for a funding freeze to conduct an ideological review of all federal grants and loans. After days of chaos and legal wrangling, two judges intervened and the administration rescinded the freeze. The National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation, which fund a large chunk of research in the country, this week began releasing grants. But that hasn’t eased the fears of scientists and researchers whose work is funded by feder-
TERRY CHEA/AP Photo
Kendra Dahmer, a postdoctoral researcher, works in a laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. al grants. The NSF said it is still conducting a review of “projects, programs and activities to be compliant with the existing executive orders.” It’s not yet clear what may happen to new and existing NIH grants either.
On Friday night, the NIH announced it was cutting payments toward overhead costs for research institutions that receive its grants, a policy that could leave universities with major budget gaps. Current-
ly, some universities receive 50% or more of the amount of a grant to put toward support staff and other needs, but that would be capped at 15%. GRANTS > 3