Nowadays, the hottest girls on campus can be found at Reavis Hall.

As the temperature outside rises, inside temperatures seem to be following suit. Students and staff say this trend is most evident in the computer labs on the second floor of Reavis.

“It’s always so warm in here,” said Towanda Taylor, a senior corporate communication major. “Whenever the weather starts to get warm outside, it gets

hotter… It’s really uncomfortable.”

Students aren’t the only ones baking in the computer labs (rooms 203, 206) when temperatures rise to the mid 80s, as they were Friday. Associate journalism professor Orayb Najjar said the smoldering temperatures made her feel ill.

“It was physically uncomfortable for me,” she said, adding that while most of the rooms were OK, Room 208 was “insufferable.”

Heating Plant officials said there are a number of reasons for the high temperatures — for example, air circulation is poor because lab windows don’t open and Reavis Hall is old. Its builders didn’t account for heat-emitting machines like computers.

“Rooms are designed for certain heat loads,” said Kevin Vines, chief engineer for the NIU Heating Plant. The computers and other equipment are producing heat that the rooms can’t hold, he added.

Also, the air conditioning hasn’t been turned on yet. Each building has its own heating center, but the main core doling out cool air to Reavis is in Zulauf Hall. Because the air conditioning hasn’t been used in a few months, precautionary measures have to be taken before it can be turned on, Vines said.

Cold water pipes need to be flushed, and any broken or rusted parts need to be replaced before the unit in Zulauf can be used. Buildings that receive cold air from the Zulauf unit are Cole, DuSable, Reavis, Watson, Gable, Graham and the Campus Child Care Center.

“There are a lot of hidden and buried pipes we need to get to,” Vines said. “If no problems occur, the switch-over can be done in 3 to 4 days.”

Because they use the same pipes for heating and cooling, older campus buildings like Swen Parson Hall could take longer.

Less-than-perfect conditions aren’t new to the heating plant.

“We go through it every spring and every fall,” Vines said. “We watch the weather and try to find the optimum time to do these operations.”

Sporadic spring weather makes it difficult to predict the right time to switch, because once the change from warm to cold air has been made it’s a long process to change back. Trying to provide a comfortable learning environment is very important to the plant, said Vines.

“We are sympathetic when things aren’t perfect,” he said.

Vines agreed that the 83- and 84-degree temperatures that were plaguing the lab Friday were too warm.

“Ideally, the temp should be at 75 or less for summer temperatures,” he said, adding that lab temperatures should be down to normal levels by this week’s end.

“We go through it every spring and every fall.”

Kevin Vines, Chief engineer for the NIU Heating plant