Hot water, heat outage forces Rowan University to cancel in-person classes rest of week

For the past two days, Anaiya Mojica hasn't had hot water inside Mullica Hall, her freshman dorm on Rowan University's campus.

"Personally, I'm not taking cold showers, so I go to a friend's house," Mojica said. "I went to a friend's house yesterday to take a shower."

Freshman Avery Valdez said he's been dealing with the same problem.

"It's annoying. We've been thinking about going to, like, another place to take a shower," Valdez said, "and it's really hot in our dorms too, so we sweat at night and stuff. It's bad."

Rowan University canceled in-person classes Thursday and Friday. Officials alerted staff and students that the Central Heating Plant has been offline since Tuesday afternoon and it's not producing any steam, which means more than 20 buildings on campus, including several residence halls, do not have heat or hot water.

"We have two boilers. One is down for regular repair. This was the backup boiler," Joe Cardona, the university's spokesperson, said.

Cardona says this is the first time something like this has happened but added it's an aging system and repairs are being made.

Cardona says the campus remains open, activities are still being held and faculty members were able to decide if they wanted to hold classes virtually.

"We also gave students the option if they wanted to go home, they had enough time to go home and still be able to take their courses online if the faculty switched to that," Cardona said.

Ben Dworkin says he made that switch quickly and moved his New Jersey politics class online in order to discuss Tuesday's midterm election results.

"There was information and material we had to continue covering in our class and we were able to do that, and pretty much everybody showed up," Dworkin said.

Cardona says the university is renting equipment to get everything back up and running, and in-person classes will be held Monday.