Lima Complex has been undergoing construction for the past five months, causing a disturbance for residents during exam season.
For months, Lima Complex had been undergoing construction on its brick, from walls to windows.
On its surface, that may sound completely innocent, but to me, it’s a violation of students’ privacy, comfort, and their physical and academic health.
I can’t speak to others’ experience with the noise and racket going on outside the Lima dorms, but I myself found it to be rather distracting while I studied for midterms, tried to sleep, or while I was just sitting in my room.
Lima Complex Resident Director Cole Newlove was contacted and declined to comment.
An email was also sent out on November 5, instructing students to keep their blinds closed to ensure privacy during maintenance. However, construction around windows had long since begun.
I suspect many students found the construction to be a breach of privacy, considering it took Residence Life nearly two weeks after I noticed such invasive construction had begun to address it.
The “contractor’s schedule generally runs from approximately 8:30 a.m. to late afternoon/early evening, Monday through Saturday,” according to Assistant Director of Residence Life Noah Oettinger, speaking on behalf of Residence Life Administration, which does seem approximately consistent with my observations.
Though Oettinger claims that “These hours are consistent with standard practices for exterior work near residential facilities, balancing productivity with efforts to minimize disruption to students,” this year’s student handbook would argue that these hours do not minimize disruption.
According to ONU’s 2025-2026 Student Handbook on page 38, quiet hours are enforced from 11:00 pm to 10:00 am Sunday through Thursday and 1:00 am to 10:00 am Friday and Saturday in order to “maintain an atmosphere that is conducive to study and sleep.”
So the contractors’ hours of operation lie a comfortable one-and-a-half hours outside the times ONU themselves deem “conducive to study and sleep” every day of the week, and that’s not even considering this construction continued through midterms and beyond.
And, if drills and falling bricks aren’t your cup of tea, how about blaring alarms to wake you up in the morning and give you a good bit of cardio while you evacuate the premises?
Fire alarms on October 6, 2025, October 22, 2025, and October 28, 2025, went off at 1:51 PM, 9:52 AM, and 8:49 AM, respectively, each one due to dust caused by contractors working on Lima Complex, according to Chief of Public Safety Craig Scott. That last one on October 28 went off an (un)healthy one hour and eleven minutes before quiet hours were up.
So, here’s my question, ONU: are you going to start respecting student privacy, sleep, study, and your own rules, or should I expect more of the same through my senior year?
Maybe by then I’ll have gotten wise and invested in a decent pair of earplugs.