Matt Markell '01 was riding his bicycle up College Street towards Elm Street Monday morning on his way to Gerry Hall when he encountered a fence blocking his path. He said he was surprised to see no signs posted by the fence.
"I expected the gate to be open," he said. Markell was late for his physics class because he had to turn his bicycle around and ride to the opposite side of Baker Library. "It was a little strange," he said.
Barr & Barr, Inc. construction workers built the fence around the Berry Library construction site during the College's spring break, and it will remain in place until June, 2000, when the Berry Library building is completed.
Both sides of the fence will be locked on Monday, said Phil Chaput, Berry Library Project manager for the Facilities Planning office.
Baker Library's Director of Administrative Services John Crane said the fence was constructed to keep students from "inadvertently wandering into the construction site."
Chaput said Facilities Planning and Safety and Security are discussing posting guards around the fence to direct student traffic and to distribute pamphlets with directions around the fence.
When the gate on the west side of the library was left open on Monday morning so mail delivery trucks could stop at the Elm Street loading dock, students who had walked into the construction site began climbing over the locked opposite gate, Director of Computing Services Communications Bill Brawley said.
Math Lecturer John Finn said he has stumbled out of class and into Elm Street with no idea whether he was inside or outside of the fence.
Once Facilities Management and Safety and Security discovered the problem, they opened both sides of the fence, Chaput said.
Students and faculty who frequent the site between classes expressed annoyance at the new obstruction.
Finn said he has not noticed any students who came to class late, but said he has been late for class and has crawled over the fence "three or four times."
Finn said there have been some notices circulating in the Math Department about the fence, but said the directions for alternate routes around the site were confusing.
Mathematics Professor Emeritus Robert Norman said he is unhappy with the arrangement.
"I wish that they had waited to start construction until the psychology people had moved into a new building," he said.
Norman also said he is concerned about people having adequate access to Filene Auditorium.
Math major Joel Stanton '99 said he saw no maps or other postings on the fence when he tried to walk through the site.
Fellow math major Mike Brewer '99 said he "had no idea" the fence was being put up this term. Brewer said he was "surprised that they would close off the area before finding a new place for the math department."
The fence also blocks convenient access to Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.
SAE President Paul Killebrew '99 said the fraternity has had ongoing negotiations with the construction company about the use of SAE's side property. The brothers knew about the fence in advance, but are experiencing the same inconveniences as everyone else, he said.
Chaput said that while the fence "took [students] by surprise," the planning committee had made "a good solid effort to get to everybody we could" the information. The situation that arose was "not a communications problem."
He said the information regarding alternate routes around the area was readily available on the Berry Library BlitzMail computer bulletin, and that maps were posted along the site last week. Directly e-mailing the student body with the information was impossible, especially since everyone had gone away for the interim break, he said.
Brawley and Assistant Director of Facilities Planning Reed Bergwall said that information about the fencing was also available on the VOX newspaper home page and the Berry Library link from the Dartmouth College home page.
Bergwall admitted the planning committee "needed to do a better job" in notifying students about the change.
Brawley said they have learned their lesson and will take steps in the future ensure that a similar situation does not happen again.
