Ice Storm Heroes at the University of Arkansas: Part III

Editor’s Note: This is the third part of an ongoing series of stories about the university staff who worked through Ice Storm 2009. This and other installments may also be found at http://www.uark.edu/rd_vcad/urel/iceStorm2009.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The University of Arkansas never really closes. After an historic ice storm classes were cancelled and university offices and business operations were closed for an unprecedented four days.

But the University of Arkansas did not close.

Approximately 4,500 students live on campus. Their needs didn’t stop for inclement weather.

Essential members of the university staff didn’t stop either: They overcame challenges and worked through the week to make sure the students were safe, warm, fed and housed. These men and women are among the real heroes of the Ice Storm of 2009.

Arkansas Union

Jerrid Freeman is director of the Arkansas Union.

At 7 a.m. Tuesday morning when he arrived at the Unionhe was also the entire Union work force. None of his staff were able to get to campus.

So Freeman went to work.

“I thought it was important to keep Union East open,” he said. For one thing, members of the computer lab staff were in, and we wanted them to be able to operate their normal hours for students. But most important, I wanted us to be open so students who needed a place to go would have the Union. We kept Union East open 24 hours a day during the storm.”

That meant Freeman put in a 15-hour day Tuesday, keeping the bathrooms, living room area and Connections Lounge cleaned and stocked with necessities.

“Some students slept in the Union but most came to study and hang out with others,” he said.

Wednesday was another long day for Freeman, but by evening some of his staff members were able to get to campus and help.

“I got to go home at 8 p.m., two hours earlier than Tuesday,” he said. The people who came in did the cleaning and stocking, because we thought campus might be open Thursday.”

Instead, classes were cancelled for both Thursday and Friday, something that had never happened at the university as a result of the weather.

Freeman and a skeleton staff kept the Union East open for students Thursday and, thanks to help from dining services, RZ’s coffee house was opened for business Thursday morning, with Club Red opening the next day. But there were still some big decisions to make.

Freeman and his operations director, Nianzer Anderson, met with the dean of students,Danny Pugh, his associate dean, Ashley Tull, and Chartwells staff to work out which Union operations could be resumed and whether the Friday Night Live event and a Chinese New Year banquet scheduled for Saturday could still go on.

Members of the housing department, Residents’ Interhall Congress, and student activities staffs worked to pull together the Friday Night Live program, while Freeman and Anderson scrambled to get as many of their own people as possible to the Union: technical, custodial, teardown/set up, night manager and reservation staff were all needed to make things work.

 “Not everyone could get in. But enough came to work that we got the job done.”

Friday Night Live went on as scheduled.

So did the banquet.

“Those were major events that could not have happened without numerous Union staff, other university staff and students all working together to making the events possible,” Freeman said.

 Saturday morning the Union Bookstore opened for business. Staff prepared for the banquet that evening and it was a success. Four days after the ice storm hit northwest Arkansas the Union was just about back to normal.