Angry finalists forced Lincoln College to change the time of
the fire drills this week, after discovering that they were
planned for 8.50am, half-an-hour before they had to be at
examination schools for finals papers. Lincoln finalists on the High Street and Bear Lane Street had
to express their anger to the Bursar and the Senior Dean before
the times were changed. As one student explained, “What was
really upsetting was the timing – 8.50am – when they clearly knew
finals start at 9.30am. College authorities seem completely
oblivious of the fact that the college exists for us to study
in.” The finalists sent messages to the Senior Dean, Peter
McCullough, and the Bursar, Tim Knowles. In an email to the
affected finalists, Knowles argued that the decision to go ahead
with the fire drills, which was originally made by the Domestic
Committee in a meeting on 4 May, was not taken without
consideration of finals. “If the Domestic Committee can be
said to have ‘got it wrong’ from your point of view,
efforts are now being made to ‘put it right’”, he
wrote, but warned of the disturbance the rescheduled time would
cause shops. McCullough sent an email of his own to the finalists and did
offer his apologies, stating, “I must take full
responsibility for arguing that the drills wouldn’t affect
finalists because I had forgotten the unusual case that there are
finalists above the Mitre this year.” In light of the
complaints, the Bursar and the Dean reorganised the times of the
drills affecting finalists, ensuring that the fire drills took
place at 9.25am on Tuesday and Wednesday. According to JCR
President, Mairi Brewis, all went “smoothly” and there
were no further drills that affected finalists. Lincoln’s fire policy was questioned last term, when a
fire burned unnoticed overnight and porters, believing there was
no fire, turned off five alarms. Firefighters took two hours to
put out the blaze.ARCHIVE: 3rd week TT 2004
Fire alarms inflame finalists
