This year, Greek chapter house maintenance requests seemed to go through the roof.
Thanks to a website glitch that made the usual auto-response after submitting a request malfunction, students living in chapter houses were submitting multiple requests, causing the total number to seemingly pile up. After the summer malfunction, however, the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life placed a notice on their website informing students that their requests were being received and processed. The notice also warned that submitting multiple requests would cause delayed attention.
OFSL facilitates the upkeep of University-owned chapter houses by allowing residents to report maintenance requests online. An auto-response confirmation always follows the submitting of a request, according to OFSL Director Scott Reikofski.
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No exact date was provided as to when the auto-response will be functional again. However, VPUL Technology Services is currently working on repairing it.
Despite the e-mail, OFSL received an overwhelming amount of repair requests during the first weeks of the semester. This prompted Facilities Manager and Senior Building Administrator Sam Alshehabi to send an email to all chapter house residents.
Students were asked to refrain from submitting multiple requests for one repair and to allow contractors a two-week time period to respond. The email did not explain the malfunction in the auto-response, however.
According to the email, during the first weeks back on campus, there were about 100 online requests being made daily. Reikofski said, “The actual number of unique repair requests is less than what we normally see during move-in.” He attributed this to the extensive work done over the summer to the chapter houses.
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After distinguishing the duplicates, the total repair requests so far this semester is 300. “By comparison, during the same time last year, VPUL Facilities received 550 repair requests,” said Reikofski.
There are 15 requests still pending because specific parts were ordered.
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