Dear Editor:

I walk across campus every day, going to work, classes and to eat lunch. Today I passed over a dozen doors wide open, held open by anything that person could find to keep it open! Doors to Rehn hall, Lawson, Faner, the Student Center and the Ag building all had doors open – and I am sure most of the other buildings I did not pass also had open doors. This raised a concern, let me explain:

For the most part, all the buildings on campus are controlled by thermostats, and there are thermostats near every entry/exit to each building. If you are unaware as to what a thermostat does exactly let me explain. Thermostats tell the heating systems of the building what the temperature is in the building, and adjusts the hot air flow to bring the building temperature back to a pre-designated level. When someone props open a door, this allows cool air to enter the building and that cool air gives a false reading to the heating systems as to what temperature it really is in the entire building. Let me put this another way. When you don’t close the door to the Student Center, cold air rushes in and cools the area around the doorway (it is not even cool in Starbucks when that north door is open), but when the thermostat gets hit by the cool air it makes the heater pump HOT air into the entire Student Center, making it so hot by McDonald’s you don’t even want to eat in the building.

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I am asking every man, woman and child who goes through a doorway on campus to make sure it closes behind them! If the doors stay closed then the hot air will stop pumping into the classrooms, offices, dinning halls and lounges all over campus to make up for the cold air around the open door! you can do this to help your personal comfort, or to help the environment by using less energy, however you want to look at it – follow the words of my father “I am not paying to heat the outdoors, shut that door when you come inside!”

I ask you all who are reading this one more time:

Close the doors behind you, please.

Don Fouts

senior studying business administration