Community Briefs

Rieber Hall evacuated after floor flooded

The sixth and possibly the fifth floor of Rieber Hall were
flooded last night after a fire sprinkler was accidentally
activated.

At about 9:10 p.m. Los Angeles City Fire Station 37 received an
"automatic alarm" call from Rieber Hall. Upon arriving,
firefighters found that all of the 600-plus Rieber residents had
been evacuated.

"There is a lot of water on the sixth floor and several rooms
have been flooded," said City Fire Capt. Wolf Knabe. "We’re going
to be here for about an hour and a half."

According to the Fire Department the flooding was caused by a
fire sprinkler that was activated after a room heater was placed
too close to it.

For some Rieber residents, fire alarms have become a familiar
occurrence: "I just get irritated after about the 20th fire alarm,"
said John Michaels, a second-year student. "This one is the first
one that I actually went outside on."

Rieber dining room re-opens

The Rieber Hall dining facility reopened yesterday after a
four-month renovation process.

Closed since August 19, the renovation was based on an analysis
of food service programs and a decision was made to update food
production and equipment, said Michael Foraker, director of
On-Campus Housing.

"It looks great. We’re very happy with it," Foraker said.

The Rieber dining hall will be open only to Rieber and Saxon
residents from now until February 1, Monday through Friday, and
will be available to Hedrick and Hitch residents next weekend,
explained Mary Niven, associate director of Food Services. On
February 1 the facility will be open to all On-Campus Housing
residents.

Niven added that there will be a ribbon cutting ceremony today
before 5:00 p.m. to commemorate the opening.

UC Berkeley loses collection

UC Berkeley is losing its Inchochina Archive, the largest
non-governmental collection of Vietnam War-related materials, to
Texas Tech University.

Douglas Pike, the archive’s director, accepted an offer from
Texas Tech after budget cuts at UC Berkeley threatened to cut off
funding to the collection. Pike said he has worked without pay for
18 months under a $50,000 archive budget that covers costs for a
part-time archivist and administrative costs.

The former Foreign Service officer in Saigon said Texas Tech,
located in Lubbock, Texas, has offered to house the collection in
its Center for the Study of the Vietnam Conflict.

The collection includes 7 million pages of manuscripts, maps,
videotapes and 15,000 books and monographs related to Indochina,
the peninsula comprised of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

UC San Joaquin campus debated

University of California officials have completed a series of
forums to help develop an academic plan for the proposed UC San
Joaquin campus near Merced.

The third and final forum, held in Merced on Saturday, attracted
60 people who discussed University of California offerings in the
valley now and hopes for the future if the campus near Lake
Yosemite opens early in the 21st Century.

"We had a conversation about ideas," said Daniel Simmons, UC’s
associate provost. Simmons called the forums "an effort to learn
what the people in the valley are thinking about."

"We’re trying to learn what they think education ought to bring
to the region," Simmons explained. He added that the forums
produced "a whole long list of ideas, some of which I’d never heard
before."

Compiled from Daily Bruin staff and wire reports