American River College faculty expressed dissatisfaction at Los Rios Community College District’s handling of the closure of Davies Hall at the Academic Senate meeting on Sept. 14; Lisa Cardoza, president of ARC, and Frank Kobayashi, vice president of instruction, were also in attendance.

Davies Hall was closed Sept. 8 after experts had determined the building could suffer a catastrophic failure if an earthquake or high winds hit the building. Faculty were given a 24-hour warning to remove personal belongings from their offices.  

According to Cardoza, college administrators knew on Sept. 5 that Davies Hall would need to be closed.

The district was notified by the Division of State Architect on June 20, 2022, that there was a potential problem with a building in the district, according to a letter sent to LRCCD chancellor Brian King. 

The letter, written by Ida Antoniolli Clair, a state architect with the California Department of General Services, DSA, said that lift slab buildings could be inherently dangerous with the potential for catastrophic failure and progressive collapse in the event of an earthquake. 

Cardoza, who stepped into her position on July 15, taking over for interim president Kobayashi, who in turn took over for Thomas Green, says she was not informed of the issue until Aug. 29. 

Cardoza shared that she understood that Davies could not handle a seismic hit from an earthquake. 

A letter dated Aug. 15, 2023, to Josef Meyer, Los Rios Management facilities, from William D. Bevier, senior principal of Bevier Structural Engineering, stated concerns of the soundness of the building. 

“At relatively low drift levels, the lift collars rotate and place the entire unbalanced load to be transferred on one side of the column and slab,” Bevier said. “This leads to punching shear failure of the slab adjacent to the slab column interface.”

According to Bevier there are problems with the walls within Davies Hall. 

“The existing shear walls are inadequate in shear and flexure when subjected to ASCE 41 loading,” Bevier said. “The columns have minimal confinement reinforcement and therefore the columns lack strength to resist axial, shear and flexural loads. The floor and roof diagrams have inadequate capacity to transfer shears to the shear walls.”  

Due to the information in hand the decision was made to close Davies Hall with a 24-hour notice. 

The meeting’s dynamic shifted after Oranit Limmaneeprasert, an ESL professor and president of the Los Rios College Federation of Teachers at ARC, shared her feelings about the closure with the meeting via Zoom. 

“I am glad that there are so many people under the kind of stress, the kind of frustration, anger, emotional pain, [who] still came to the board meeting and showed up in support,” Limmaneeprasert said. “What happened was not acceptable.”

Aaron Bradford, co-chair of the English department, shared how he was a displaced faculty member from Davies. 

“These classrooms showed underserved students quality care,” Bradford said. “Those classrooms are erased and not easily replaced by simply putting their desks into a community room or by putting students into a computer lab designed for solitary work.” 

Bradford also wanted to discuss what was going to be done about the future of the English department. 

“I do know that the English faculty demand that they should not be the only ones put into makeshift spaces for fall courses,” Bradford said. “This closure affects us all.”

Bradford said he believes there is room in other buildings and departments to share resources. 

“If this campus is a family, as we’ve been told countless times over,” Bradford said. “Then the classroom space currently owned by other disciplines should be made available at the point of schedule.”

Tressa Tabares, behavioral and social sciences professor, says she teaches her political science students to hold the government accountable. 

“It is their right and responsibility to hold leaders accountable,” Tabares said. “Especially when those leaders claim to be acting on their behalf and in the collective best interest.”

Cathy Arellano, English professor, also took the floor to share the sacrifices her students were willing to make to continue in their education.

In my second class, when I told [the students] about the closure, a student cried,” Arellano said. “The students were willing to sign a waiver to stay in class.”

Arellano also shared that she is fine with losing Davies Hall, she just did not care for how it was done. 

“Last Thursday to hear a little before 9 a.m. that we had to clear everything out by Friday at 8 a.m., which really meant Thursday,” Arellano said. “Add another slab, blow it up, but it didn’t have to be this way.”

Shannon Pries, an English professor, shared a similar frustration on the time frame of the notification. 

“There was absolutely no reason that faculty could not have been given notice that the building might need to be closed permanently on Tuesday,” Pries said. “We had to upend our lives, whether it meant following a long day of teaching with hours of removing personal items, or it meant disregarding what was happening in our personal lives.”

Pries said she believes that they should have been trusted and given a heads up. 

“We could have been treated with dignity and respect,” Pries said. “Allowed us to remove our things from the building over a tight manageable 36 hour period instead of a chaotic and stressful 24 hour one.” 

Brian Knirk, academic senate president, welcomed Cardoza and Kobayashi to give the report on Davies Hall. 

Cardoza, who came to the meeting carrying three thick white binders, said they contained the ARC’s emergency protocols, and shared her remorse for the situation. 

“I am standing up here in front of you all to apologize,” Cardoza said. “I am truly sorry that this is the situation that we’re in.”

Cardoza said she understood what the building meant to the ARC community. 

“I do not underestimate the magnitude that the decision to close Davies Hall had on each and every one of you, on our students, on our campus,” Cardoza said. “I walked the halls of Davies that morning, I walked the halls of Davies that afternoon and I felt it.”

Cardoza said that she had witnessed devastation of loss of life during her tenure at CSUS. 

“My biggest fear is losing someone under my watch,” Cardoza said. “When we got word that the building was not built in a manner to handle a seismic event, there would be, could be catastrophic damage, catastrophic failure, we went in emergency mode.”

Cardoza acknowledged that she heard the faculty say they wanted more input into being part of the solution. 

“I’ve offered the history department to sit down and meet,” Cardoza said. “I want concrete ideas about how we can move forward.”

After an executive meeting on Aug. 29 Cardoza said she was informed of the concerns with Davies Hall. Administration wanted to get a hold of the state architects before making any decisions. 

According to Cardoza, the information was shared with the Academic Senate and Union on Sept. 6. 

“As one of those constituent folks that was in the room when we were told, [it] was myself as Academic Senate President, the leadership of the Union, Alisa Shubb, Oranit,” Knirk said. “We received an email at 6:50 in the morning on Wednesday saying there was an emergency meeting at 2 p.m.” 

According to Knirk, after Shubb, Limmaneeprasert and himself were informed of the situation they were told to not share the Davies Hall was going to be closed.

In an interview after the meeting, Cardoza said that the deans were not told until the night before the email went out to everyone. 

According to Cardoza, all classes are now back in person.

“Some of the classes are not ideal,” Cardoza said. “We are continuing to make shifts as we empty out and prepare some of the portables to house those classrooms.”

There are other arrangements being made by the district for the spring 2024 semester. 

“The district office has already been looking into getting portables,” Cardoza said. 

Cardoza admits a lot more conversations need to happen to decide what will happen with Davies Hall. 

“Right now the estimate to retrofit is quite astronomical,” Cardoza said.  

Editors Note: This article has been updated to correct the title for Oranit Limmaneeprasert.