Campus Wide Power Outage Scheduled For Holiday Break
Dec. 13, 2010
SHSU Media Contact: Julia May
Although most of the campus will be vacant the week after Christmas, a number of Sam Houston State University employees will be working to ensure that infrastructure is in place and new programs are up-and-running when the spring semester begins in January.
The work will involve periodic disruption to electrical service, however, and SHSU officials want the university community to be aware of those times so that they can plan accordingly.
“The work is taking place during our holiday break so that fewer people will be affected,” said Dana Gibson, SHSU president. “All the work is in response to the progress and increased productivity taking place within the university. Unfortunately, sometimes with improvements there are inconveniences.”
On Dec. 27-29 there will be power outages affecting all buildings on the main university site. Because of growth on the north side of campus, two new electrical circuits will be installed, requiring the main power source to be shut down.
“With the new construction of buildings, the campus is running out of electrical capacity. Therefore, we have to add the new circuits in order to support all university activities requiring electricity,” said Gordon Morrow, SHSU director of plant operations.
“If all goes as planned, the work will be completed on Monday and Tuesday, Dec. 27-28, and all circuits will be back online by 8 o’clock Wednesday morning,” Morrow said.
All buildings that receive power from the main campus feed will be without electricity from 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. on each day Dec. 27-29. On that Monday and Tuesday, the following buildings will begin to “power up” as switchovers are completed:
- Academic Building I
- College of Humanities & Social Sciences
- Estill (Residence Hall)
- Sorority Hill
- Jackson Shaver
- Four West
- Academic Building II
- West Plant
- Criminal Justice
- University Hotel
- Criminal Justice Café
- TDCJ Area
- Raven Village
- Bearkat Village
- South Paw
- Estill (Administration)
- Lowman Student Center
- Lee Drain
- Chemistry & Forensic Science
- Performing Arts Center
- East Plant
- Sam Houston Village – Shut down 28 hours on Tuesday/Wednesday
Buildings not listed above will be without power at least one day from 4 a.m. Dec. 27 through 8 a.m. Dec. 29. On Dec. 29, all circuits are scheduled to be back online at 8 a.m. and all buildings should have power at that time.
In addition to being aware of work limitations during those days, individuals should do such things as remove food items from refrigerators and freezers and turn off or unplug electrical equipment before leaving campus for the break.
Employees should also be aware of work over the holiday involving the continued rollout of the administrative software application, Banner.
The university began the “go-lives” the first weekend in December with activation of the human resources and payroll programs.
The finance system of Banner had a soft go-live earlier this year and has been available to financial office staff since that time. The rest of campus will have access to the system when it is rolled out over the December 31 weekend. With the finance go-live, employees will start generating purchase orders, travel payments, budget transfers and handle other financial transactions on the new system when they return to work Jan. 3.
Training for various components of both finance and the human resources/payroll systems has been ongoing since mid-fall and will continue into the spring. For the week of Jan. 3-7, the Banner project management team is working to schedule an open lab staffed by those specifically trained in each functional area.
“We currently don’t have any scheduled server or other computing services downtime scheduled over the holiday period,” said Stephanie Brim, information resources project coordinator.
“All of the groundwork for the go-lives has been done and any other updates can be handled without taking the system down,” she said. “However, if something does arise over the holiday period, Information Resources staff will schedule any downtime on a Friday evening or over a weekend and provide the usual notices on Nell, SamMenu, and the university website.
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