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Employees at Hitchcock Hall who were concerned about the building’s air quality met with the dean of the College of Engineering Nov. 3 to get an update on the building’s safety.
Instead, some left the meeting very disappointed.
In a Nov. 5 memo, Rosemary Hill, director of Engineering and Career Services in Hitchcock, wrote that many who attended left “feeling the [College of Engineering] administration exhibited contempt for employees known to be affected and, based on limited and often erroneous information, trivialized the impact of these events.”
The Lantern obtained her memo and many other documents related to the cases of histoplasmosis in Hitchcock last week after making a public records request.
Hill’s memo to her supervisors noted that Interim Dean Gregory Washington didn’t have a very good command of the facts about the apparent fungal illness when he conducted the meeting.
She also was taken aback by “the Dean’s harsh and angry manner” in response to a question from Amy Franklin, who apparently contracted histoplasmosis in Hitchcock. Franklin’s symptoms were so severe she had to be hospitalized in October.
Another worker, Olga Stavridis, had a fist-sized section of her lung removed in June after she too contracted histoplasmosis.
Washington acknowledged that the meeting didn’t go well. In a Nov. 6 memo to the College of Engineering staff, he wrote that the meeting was “at times contentious” and that “I should have taken a different tact on how I handled the meeting.”
Hill was disturbed that Washington blamed “the victim” during the meeting. She says he chastised Stavridis for failing to request to be moved to another office earlier. Stavridis first complained that she was feeling ill in late May. She was hospitalized three days later and was out of work for weeks after that.
Hill’s memo said one colleague expected administrators to “show human compassion.” Hill said, however, that she set her expectations even lower.
“I expect simple logic and a minimal awareness of PR impact,” she wrote. “I was disappointed in that, too, however.”
Her memo said that a total of 10 people in the affected Hitchcock office suite reported “pulmonary or ocular problems in spring,”
She also estimated that about 288 students and 10 recruiters had spent time in the suite during the time it apparently was infested with fungal spores.
Hill noted that administrators raised doubts about the lab that Stavridis used to test the ceiling tiles from her office.
“It was not productive to cast doubt on the testing laboratory,” she said.
In fact, the lab Stavridis used is the same one a university consultant used in November, EMLab P&K in Phoenix.
In addition, Hill complained in her memo that she was unable to get histoplasmosis testing at Employee Health Services when she initially sought it.
Officials at Health Services said they didn’t know what tests to conduct, her memo says.
In his memo after the meeting, Washington said the administration is taking steps to reduce employee concern. He said testing will be offered to employees. He also said other buildings will be tested.
They include “Watts, Koffolt, Bolz, McQuigg, and the Aviation buildings.”
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