“Someone was baking a pie, and it set off the detector,” a maintenance staff member who arrived in response to the alarm said.

The same situation had already occurred several times this semester. A fire alarm was set off accidentally due to the use of the oven in this kitchen earlier in the semester. In most instances, the false alarms went off in the morning, except once when it happened late at night, waking up residents in the dorm.

Sophomore Dowoo Kim, who lives in Shepley, said that the false fire alarms occurred about once a week during the beginning of the semester. She said that the first floor kitchen, which has the only oven in the building, was closed for a month starting in mid-October.

“I think there is a problem with our building, because when I lived in Beaumont last year this was not a problem, even though Beaumont has a lower quality kitchen,” Kim said.

Washington University Emergency Coordinator Mark Bagby attributes the cause of the false fire alarms to the burning of food scraps that hadn’t been cleaned up on the stoves when the next person used them.

“They are electric stoves,” he said. “Food gets on there. Somebody uses it, the food burns; it sets off the fire alarm.”

According to Bagby, the Washington University Police Department is in charge of all fire alarms on campus. There is a dispatcher on duty there 24 hours a day who, in the event of a fire on the South 40, would contact the Clayton Fire Department, and send a police officer and facilities staff member to inspect the incident.

On Oct. 1, University staff failed to act quickly enough to identify a false alarm when a fire alarm was set off in Seigle Hall due to dust from construction work inside the building.

The fire alarm continued to sound as firemen were initially unable to unlock the master fire alarm panel to turn it off because one of the occupants of the building had changed the lock.

Bagby asserted, however, that there is no chance of firemen not having access to the building in case of an actual fire.

“There is a Knox Box that has cards and keys [to everywhere on campus], and only the fire department has access to it,” he said.

Bagby also said that some of the past false alarms were really fire drills.

“We are required to do four fire drills per year by the fire code. One is carried out within the first 10 days of school, one in spring, one in summer and one false alarm is counted with the code.”

According to Bagby, the drills proceed smoothly with no trouble for the most part, except for the occasional complaining resident.

“Especially in the fall, you always get one or two people who were showering. One person who had soap and stuff when the drill alarm went off,” Bagby said. “We get the negative reaction when it’s a false alarm.”

One important fire hazard that has been addressed through the drills is the use of doorstops.

“Doors are also intended as fire stops. It would take two hours for a fire to burn through a door,” Bagby said. “When people put doorstops, what they’re doing is creating an opportunity for the fire to spread.”

Last fall, 700 doorstops were removed from campus buildings during fire drills. This fall, as a response to the lessons learned from last year, fewer than 100 were removed.

Bagby is also working on a video instructing students as to how to use fire extinguishers and recommends that students take the time to learn about emergency procedures online at either emergency.wustl.edu or ehs.wustl.edu.

“There are lots of tools out there,” he said.

Boeing plans to unveil the ranking results to those universities this month.

The ranking system seeks to improve the dialogue on curriculum, performance and Boeing’s ability to build strong relationships with universities, according to Vice President for Human Resources and Administration Richard D. Stephens in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Nick Benassi, assistant dean for public relations in the Washington University School of Engineering and Applied Science, reported that Boeing has stayed true to Stephens’ words, and that the company has formed stronger connections with engineering schools.

“The School of Engineering values its partnerships with industry, especially with the Boeing Company,” Benassi said. “Representatives from Boeing were instrumental in the School’s strategic planning effort which brought about important ideas, including a proposed new graduate level degree program in applied systems integration.”

The 2008 U.S. News and World Report Best College Rankings placed the University 12th among national universities and ranked the School of Engineering and Applied Science 38th among engineering schools.

Benassi was proud of the University’s rank but added that rankings ultimately should not determine a student’s decision to attend a university.

“What should matter most to a prospective student is how he or she feels about a particular university when visiting campuses and speaking with students and professors,” he said. “This is the best way to know if a university is the right place for them.”

Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Michael Swartwout agreed that companies cannot perfectly rely on such rankings.

“The problem with rankings is that every ranking system is incomplete and imperfect and more importantly, every student has a unique set of goals and needs, and many, many excellent students would be worse off by attending the so-called ‘top-ranked’ engineering school,” Swartwout wrote in an e-mail.

Swartwout pointed out that the Boeing ranking system is very specific to the company, which may not be what is best for the graduates. Furthermore, the rankings apply mainly to the majors of aerospace, mechanical and electrical engineering and computer science.

“So students need to see the ranking for what it is—an imperfect measurement of which schools tend to create good Boeing employees, and that Boeing’s rankings are not one-size-fits-all,” he wrote. “I think that high school students should be extremely careful with any so-called ranking system—Boeing’s included.”

Freshman Bryan Baird, who plans to major in mechanical engineering and possibly minor in aerospace engineering, said he would not give too much weight to a ranking like Boeing’s.

“I don’t think a ranking [by an industrial company] would have affected my application decision very much at all,” Baird said. “I settled on Wash. U. after not only loving the campus, but also discovering how easy and common it is for students to be in the engineering school but still have enough time for a life outside of math and science.”

Baird added that the chance to enjoy a social life and the opportunity to study other subjects such as politics, philosophy and writing serve as a highly important complement to the study of engineering.

“I think Wash. U. embraces this balance incredibly well,” he said.

Gokturk Kuru, a student at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, a school globally recognized for its program in aerospace engineering, had similar concerns about the general university experience.

“There are some disadvantages to studying at a technical university,” Kuru said. “Everyone is an engineer. You want to see psychology majors around.”

The property, a highly visible building on the northwestern corner of Eastgate Avenue and Delmar Boulevard, now joins the ranks of a number of other properties in the Loop owned by the University, most of which were purchased within the past few years.

According to Assistant Vice Chancellor for Operations Steve Hoffner, the building’s exact purpose has yet to be determined.

“We bought it because it’s adjacent to the other buildings Washington University owns in the Loop,” Hoffner said.

The adjacent buildings, Hoffner explains, are currently being used as graduate housing, and owning this new property “will provide greater flexibility in planning in the future.”

The University’s focus on bolstering its presence in the Loop stems from the street’s position as “an important relaxation and entertainment place to Wash. U. students,” Hoffner said.

“We place great importance on it and want to make sure it remains this vibrant,” he said. “[To achieve this], we work closely with the community.”

The University provides patrols to neighborhood security, makes annual contributions to University City police services and hires a community liaison who regularly attends the meetings held by the Loop Special Business District, a union formed by the business owners in the Loop.

Joe Edwards, a participant in this union as owner of Blueberry Hill and the Pageant Theatre—two of the most popular venues on the Loop—is enthusiastic about the community’s collaboration with the University.

“Washington University is a great community partner,” he said. “It has a great view for the future of the area and has made a wonderful statement of dedication to the community by purchasing properties for its North Campus in the Skinker-Delmar-MetroLink triangle. [The purchases by the University] helps stabilize the area by turning unused properties into well-kept ones, and [our partnership with the University] helps build up a wonderful community where everybody feels welcome.”

Edwards believes that this partnership was a significant contributor to the recent naming of the Delmar Loop as one of the 10 great streets in America by the American Planning Association in 2007.

“[The selection was] one of the most exciting outcomes of our partnership [with the University]. It attracted a lot of tourists and travel writers in the past year; articles about Delmar appeared in publications like Time and The New York Times,” Edwards said. “It was an important recognition.”

According to Hoffner, the University has yet to receive any negative feedback in response to its strong presence on the Loop.

Rachel Leibovich, an employee at Coldstone Creamery on the Loop, says that she has only had positive experiences with University students.

“They visit frequently; we even have a couple of regulars. They’re great. We have also fundraised for students in the past,” Leibovich said. “We definitely welcome [the] Wash. U. presence.”

Univerity students are also ready to offer their presence on the Loop.

University alum and first year graduate student Ceyla Erhan said the Loop has always been an important place for her to relax and have fun.

“I come from a very big, vibrant city, so I value having a place like the Loop close by,” Erhan said. “I go there three or four times a week just to hang out. I also pass by it everyday to get to school this year since I live two streets down the Loop.”

Safety is a top priority for someone like Erhan.

“I walk or ride my bike home every day, so it’s important that the Loop is safe. I definitely see a lot of Wash. U. patrols around, perhaps slightly more so in the past few years than this year, but I think it’s safe,” she said.