Accidents happen.

Things break.

Man-made objects are bound to stop working eventually.

We can’t really help when things like this happen.

For instance, when the air chiller stopped working Sept. 1 in Mabee Memorial Hall, it wasn’t anyone’s fault.

No one can actually be held responsible for it breaking.

And really, the air chiller was bound to give out eventually, since the unit was installed in the 1960s. So, a problem like this could not have been prevented.

But while no one can be held responsible when something, like a building’s air chiller, breaks unexpectedly, people can be held responsible for remedying the problems caused from it.

When a classroom is as warm as a sauna, it gets to be really easy for students to feel uncomfortable.

They start to sweat.

They want to fall asleep.

They constantly need to fan themselves in order to get any form of air circulating.

This, in turn, can affect the attention span of students.

It may even affect attendance. If students hate going to a warm classroom, they may not even go at all.

But it’s not just students who suffer in warm classes, professors suffer, too. Standing up in front of a class, lecturing for 50 or 75 minutes in a room with no cool air can be just as uncomfortable as sitting and listening to the lecture, if not more uncomfortable.

A number of faculty, students and staff have had to grin and bear the uncomfortable heat in Mabee. But for the most part, this uncomfortable situation is being remedied.

A lot of classes in Mabee have been, if applicable, moved to other buildings on campus, where students can pay attention, while being comfortable in the cooler air.

And faculty who have their offices in Mabee are learning to deal with the heat.

For those who have classes or offices in Mabee, they are not out of the clear yet. It could take five to six weeks for the new air chiller unit to arrive and be installed.

Which means it will be October by the time students and faculty in Mabee can actually enjoy cooler air inside. Unfortunately, they will be able to enjoy the cooler autumn air outside, too.

Even though the air outside will be much cooler by the time the new air chiller is installed, the unit still needs to be fixed.

Inconveniences, like a broken air chiller, happen all the time. And often people have no way to predict when mechanical problems are going to happen.

But it’s what those people do to help remedy the situation that shows the determination of fixing unexpected and uncomfortable situations.