“The CL is for closet, not computer lab,” said Alex Gelman, NIU director of the School of Theatre and Dance, while he pointed to the door of a computer lab that was formerly a janitor’s closet in the Stevens Building.

“We’re making the best of the situation we have,” said Anna Goller, scene shop supervisor at the Stevens Building.

First occupied in 1959, students and administrators feel the Stevens Building is long overdue for renovations.

“You can only polish a turd so much,” Goller said.

The building houses three theaters and several offices and classrooms for anthropology and theater departments.

“It’s pretty sad when the condition of your building makes it hard to learn,” Adam Liston, a scenic design graduate student, said. “We have leaks that blow up our computers.”

In the absence of funding to fix the building, Goller said students and staff invest their own time doing patch-up work.

“I open the door to this room and the ceiling was leaking from three places,” said Eric Loughlin, a sophomore acting major. “There was a whole section of the floor that was super-saturated with water.”

“We had to put garbage cans underneath to catch the water,” said Alexandria Frenkel, a sophomore acting major. “The garbage cans overflowed.”

“It’s unhealthy and it’s unsafe,” Gelman said. “I’m pretty certain there is asbestos in the tiles on the floor and in the heating pipes.”

Gelman said the building is not compliant with the American Disabilities Act. Because there are no elevators in the building, Gelman said handicap patrons are forced to go outside, up a hill and back into the building to get to two of the building’s three theaters.

“You can’t teach voice, acting or hold public performance when the heater/cooler is louder than the voices,” Gelman said. “The HVAC system is ancient and not in proper working order. It breaks with great regularity. It’s very noisy, so we can’t really operate it in the classes we teach.”

Goller said sound insulation problems are so bad that during performances, vending machines need to be turned off and people can’t flush in the men’s/women’s washroom.

“We have places where mold is growing. It is scraped regularly,” Gelman said. “It’s dangerous to be here at times. Students sacrifice, in some cases, their well-being for the quality of the learning they are able to achieve here.”

Despite the conditions described by those using the Stevens Building, NIU’s theater program is considered by many to be one of the top in the country.

“They’re here for the training; the teaching is superb,” Gelman said.

Liston said he had a class in the lab that was so overcrowded that two students had to sit out in the hall and rest their own laptops on TV trays.

“You have no idea how distracting it is when you’ve got people sitting on the floor with laptops,” Liston said. “When the teacher has to walk up to talk about something on the projection he has to step over students.”

“The temperature in here goes from ridiculously hot to extremely cold,” Goller said. “We have a space heater toward the front of the classroom and an air conditioning unit at the back, which drips on whoever happens to be sitting there.”

At University Council on Jan. 24, President John Peters said renovations on the Stevens Building have been a top priority for the university for upwards of a decade. However, Peters said the lack of a capital bill to provide money delayed the necessary renovations. Even though NIU has not received a capital bill in four years, Peters said he still hopes to receive one from the state.

“The reputation of the school is strong because of the quality of its faculty and success of its alumni,” Gelman said. “It’s hard to imagine where we would be if we had an adequate facility.”