Eric Aasen '02 woke up in his dorm room as the sun rose, just as he had for the entirety of his senior year. Except this time, fire alarms sounded.
Rector Hall, the 85-year-old residential building Aasen and a little over a hundred other upperclassmen lived in, caught fire on Sunday, April 7, 2002 - ten years ago this Saturday. The building, situated on North Quad in between Lucy Rowland Hall and Mason Hall, has since been torn down and turned into Rector Village, a group of seven buildings with apartment-style units.
The anniversary of this disaster marks both a time when the DePauw community rallied together and a radical shift in the way the university approached on-campus housing.
FIREFIGHTING
After ignoring the alarm for a few minutes, Aasen, groggy and confused, got out of bed and grabbed his ID badge. He walked down the stairs from his third-floor dorm room, out of the building and across the street, where groups of people gathered on the steps of the Union Building. There was no smoke or flames in sight, and initially, Aasen thought the alarm just accidentally went off.
"People were starting to say, 'there's a fire,'" Aasen said. "Then like literally two minutes after someone said that, I could see the flames."The fire, which started in a corner dorm room on the fourth floor spread through the fourth floor, scaling the roof, according to an article published in The DePauw.
Coordinator of Emergency Management Doug Cox, head of public safety at the time, said the Greencastle Fire Department received the emergency call that the building was on fire at 7:42 a.m. Just minutes later, the fire department and Cox arrived to campus.
"One of the most terrifying sights I could ever imagine was pulling up to North Quad and seeing students running and smoke blowing out of the windows," Cox said.
Dean of Campus Life Dorian Shager, director of housing at the time, also arrived on campus soon after the call was made. He, along with some of the firefighters, spent about 20 minutes in Rector Hall, knocking on or unlocking each door to make sure all of the students got out of the building.
As a safety precaution, Mason and Lucy were also evacuated because they were connected to the buildings via underground tunnels.
Both Shager and Cox said that the biggest concern of staff at this point was to make sure everyone got out of the residence hall safely.
"Losing the building is one thing, but it was the priority that we didn't lose our students," Shager said.
No students were killed or injured in the fire. At least one woman on the fourth floor slept through the alarm and was rescued by firefighters through her dorm room window, according to The DePauw.
With the help of one hundred firefighters from three counties and 12 departments, the fire was extinguished by 1 p.m. on Sunday.
"The fire department's response was impeccable on how they coordinated the emergency response," Cox said.
The higher floors of the building suffered more destruction than the lower ones. The fourth floor had a large amount of fire damage, including a collapsed roof. The rest of the floors had minor to extensive water and smoke damage.
On Monday, Aasen, as well as other residents of Rector Hall, went back to his room to collect his items. Faculty and staff wearing hard hats escorted these students and helped them pack their belongings in black trash bags, according to Shager.
"Everything was smoky and quite a lot of stuff was damp," Aasen said. "It was gross. Everything smelled."
Aasen felt relatively lucky with the outcome of his belongings. Even though his desktop computer had water on it when he retrieved it from his room, it operated normally and none of his files were lost.
Not all students felt the same, according to The DePauw. Before they were allowed back into the building, many students were nervous that their things - among which were valuables and schoolwork - were ruined by water or fire.
"Students were really frustrated because we couldn't let them back in [immediately]," said Cindy Babington, dean of students.
Babington had a few strategies to tackle these challenges, including splitting up displaced students into groups of 10 to 15 people and having a volunteer advocate for the group's needs. She also tried to keep in clear communication with parents through e-mail and letters.
Babington said she sympathized with what the students were going through.
"One day, they're going about their business," she said. "The next day, they have nothing."
COMMUNITY RELIEF
The fire in Rector Hall broke out before the time of text messaging and Facebook, but information still got out through word of mouth. By midmorning, many people from various corners of campus congregated on the steps of the Union Building, according to Aasen.
"[The fire] is something I'll never forget," he said. "It was wild, it was just wild."
Aasen only broke his sight from Rector Hall's roof engulfed in flames when he realized he had bigger problems than getting a shower and change of clothes. As a type I diabetic, Aasen needed to take insulin, which was still in his room. David Bohmer, director of the Media Fellows program, drove Aasen to Wal-Mart so that he could pick up his prescription.
Like Bohmer, many others went out of their way to help victims of the fire. There was an absolute outpour of donations from DePauw students and Greencastle community members alike. The Union Building ballroom, renamed "Ballroom Boutique," according to The DePauw, turned into a center for displaced students to grab necessary items, such as clothing, toiletries and school supplies.
Babington particularly remembers that the Red Cross had a strong presence on campus. Associate Dean of Students, Cara Setchell, director of residence life at the time, recalls that Dr. Daryl William Hodges, an optometrist, offered prescriptions to students who lost their glasses or contacts.
"That was the thing that struck me - how gracious our student body was and how gracious the Greencastle community was," Setchell said.
On Sunday night, most students slept at a friend's place on campus, which wasn't hard to arrange since DePauw has a small amount of students, according to Shager. He also said many Greencastle community members also offered to make extra space in their homes for DePauw students. Additionally, the owner of The Walden Inn, which has now been converted to the Inn at DePauw, took in 21 students, according to The DePauw.
"At the time, I had been here around 16 years," Cox said. "I had never seen a greater act of the community responding to those students."
The generosity Cox described gave the housing office time to make permanent accommodations for Rector Hall residents. The university rented local Greencastle apartments within walking distance of campus. Greek houses also made room for their members, and Sigma Nu fraternity allowed students - whether they were affiliated or not - to reside on an empty floor of their residence at the corner of Anderson and Bloomington Streets, which was torn down earlier this year.
The university made arrangements for all students living in Rector Hall within the week.
RE-SHAPING CAMPUS HOUSING
The housing the university acquired after the fire worked out reasonably well for the remainder of the school year. However, those in the office of residence life knew they needed to initiate a new plan to house students before the new school year started.
"It's intriguing to me how much it impacted students at the time and how little students know about it now," Shager said.
Today, the Rector Hall fire has indirectly affected current students, even though they didn't witness the building bursting into flames.
With Rector Hall dilapidated, the on-campus housing options have expanded.
In 1997, about a year before Shager was employed by DePauw, the Residence Life and Housing Office implemented some on-campus, apartment-style living options, among which were Coan Apartments and Seminary Apartments. When Rector Hall caught fire in 2002, within five years after the "alternative housing" option was established, 137 students lived in the newly acquired apartments.
This type of living provided more facilities, such as working kitchen appliances, and allowed more independence - qualities the housing staff noticed were very popular among DePauw students. DePauw was far ahead of this national trend on residential university campuses, according to Shager.
So when Rector Hall was destroyed, it didn't make sense to build another large, dorm-style residence hall in its place.
Months before the fire happened, the housing office had conversations about implementing more apartment-style options on campus. In response to housing needs after the fire, DePauw hired CSO Architects who quickly created blueprints for several duplexes. Students were put into a housing lottery for the new living areas, and construction began during the summer of 2002. Students were able to move into the duplexes, located on the west side of campus, by the beginning of the fall semester.
But the housing office still had unfinished business: What to do with the space Rector Hall left behind?
On Feb. 5, 2003, administrators of the university announced that Rector Village was going to be built. Over a year after the fire, an excavator began tearing down the remains of Rector Hall on April 22, 2003. The new buildings were dedicated on Sept. 8, 2004 during Old Gold weekend.
Currently, there are 17 duplexes that can hold a total of 70 students. Rector Village can house 136 students in its seven buildings.
Including all other university houses and apartments, the university currently houses 850 upperclassmen in 550 living units, according to Shager. The Rector Hall fire was certainly the pivotal moment at which upperclassmen housing on campus was revamped for students' future needs.
But for those who remain on campus ten years later, the Rector Hall fire, while certainly a tragedy, is a reminder of the close-knit community DePauw prides itself on.
"DePauw pulls together in difficult time and come out stronger," Setchell said.
PREVENTING ANOTHER DISASTER
Cox believes fire drills are the most important way to practice fire safety on campus. He said if another fire were to happen, it is important to know more than one building exit and where to meet other occupants once out of the building.
From 2008-2010, there have been eight recorded fires in residences on campus.
These fires were on a much smaller scale than Rector Hall. Four were caused in kitchens, two by laundry equipment, one by an air conditioning unit and one by a cigarette.
If a fire has occurred, report immediately to:
- Putnam County: "911"
- Public Safety: (765) 658-4261
Source: Office of Public Safety website
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Check out videos of the fire online:
http://bit.ly/Hg9aQG
http://bit.ly/HpqYEN
http://bit.ly/H9TtrG