Do campus facilities lack means to prevent infections?

We all know McDaniel has its flaws when it comes to some health and safety issues, but with the recent Glarocalypse, what could McDaniel improve on to help epidemics like this NOT spread throughout the entire campus?

The first thing McDaniel could improve on is providing us with soap in the dormitory bathrooms. While we do have hand sanitizer, it does not do the same job as washing your hands with soap and water after using the restroom.

The Class of 2015 Facebook page has already made their opinion known with a string of comments in reference to the issue.

One student even made the suggestion of starting a “Bring Soap to McDaniel” club. Other students offered their own opinions of buy soap for yourself for your own personal use.

But with the amount of money many of us pay to attend this school, you would think something as simple as soap would be provided to us. Brandon Boatman told us that the RAs did receive soap earlier today to place in their restrooms.

Along with soap, many students have also suggested providing us with paper towels. We understand that the college is trying to be environmentally friendly, but when it comes to being healthy, we should have towels or hand dryers at the very least to dry our hands after we wash them.

Another suggestion that has been made is instead of having someone else touch our ID cards and swipe them to get into Glar, allowing us to swipe our own cards. This way, germs can’t spread as quickly.

When Ms. Cecil or Ms. Ethel swipe our ID cards to let us in to Glar, they are putting their own health at risk since a student who hands them their card may be sick and germs can be passed from the card to their hands.

Being able to swipe our own cards, with supervision of course, would cut down on the possibility of spreading germs this way.

Also pertaining to contamination and Glar, how many times have you picked up a bowl, fork, cup, whatever and found that it had some form of food residue on it? Is it possible that the dishwashers in Glar are not performing well enough to clean a mass number of dishes each day?

Something many students don’t know is that when Glar was renovated, it was only done cosmetically, meaning that the food preparation areas and equipment were not updated. I know this for a fact because I attended a “Dinner on Us” event last semester and was given a behind the scenes tour of Glar.

You’d be surprised if you knew the outdated equipment and conditions they are working under.

Also the ice machine in Glar is a cause for concern and possible contamination. If you have ever stood in the sandwich line, you may have noticed the workers filling a large plastic tub with ice and using a shovel to scoop it from the ice maker into the tub.

This is then brought out right in the open and tossed into the soda machines. Could the transfer of ice to the machine using the shovel (who knows what else that has touched) and then the workers putting the ice into the machines have some effect on contamination?

Finally, one thing that would make the most sense to installing on campus would be automatic doors so we don’t have to constantly touch door handles. This provides us with a lesser chance of contracting viruses since germs can stick to door handles and then transfer to us.

While we do have the handicapped doors to the top entrance of Decker College Center, it may be a good idea to install automatic doors all over the entire campus so we don’t have to touch a surface that everybody else inevitably touched, too.

We may not know where this virus came from or how it made its way to McDaniel. But what we do know is that there are precautions and maybe some improvements McDaniel could make in order for it to not become so widespread.