During welcome week at Rowan University in late August to early September, there were plenty of activities for Rowan’s largest freshman class to participate in. This spanned anywhere from pep rallies, Family Feud games, picnics, and more, but perhaps the most talked about activity was not listed on everyone’s welcome week pamphlet.

This was the very sudden, very noisy activity of evacuating Holly Pointe Commons after fire alarms rang out multiple times throughout the first few late nights and early mornings of students’ stays at Rowan.

“I was not happy about that at all,” said Tanner Gudkencht, a freshman law and justice major.

On Monday, Sept. 2nd, a notice was sent to student’s inboxes regarding the fire alarms. The email titled “Notice regarding recent fire alarms,” included statements addressing each activation.

The notice came from Shane Karolyi, the area coordinator for Holly Pointe Commons, who said that the first activation on Aug. 30 came from an unknown source, and the second activation, later that night, occurred because of the detector head being dirty.

On Sept. 2nd, the alarm rang out around 6:30 AM, an obviously inconvenient time for almost everyone in Holly Pointe Commons, especially on everyone’s final day without classes.

The cause for that activation was provided as well, as Karolyi explained it occurred because of a control board getting wet, triggering the building’s alarms. Karolyi mentioned that the leak and detector were addressed that same day, therefore resolving the concern, which Rowan says was a collaborative effort between Holly Pointe Commons personnel and Rowan police.

“Yes,” was the resounding answer from students worried about the alarms continuing throughout the semester and perhaps even the year.

For now, students at Holly Pointe have been able to go without the disruption, as no fire alarm has been set off since the 6:30 AM alarm on Sept. 2.

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