Communication Center

The Facilities Communication Center is staffed twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year including holidays. The Communication Specialists serve two primary functions, that of receiving the incoming telephone calls for the departments including maintenance requests and monitoring of the building automation and control systems. All telephone calls coming into the main Facilities number are handled by the Communication Center Staff. These calls may range from requests for transfer to other Facilities staff requests for general University information to reports of emergency situations. The majority of calls are for regular maintenance so this information is entered in the computerized work order system. These requests are then routed to the proper trade for repair. Emergency requests are a priority and require quick analysis of the situation in order to dispatch the proper personnel. These types of situations include fire alarms, intrusion alarms, elevator alarms, broken pipes, electrical outages, or weather related situations, as well as any other emergencies that can happen to a small city within a city. The building automation and control systems now include nearly every academic building on campus. These systems must be monitored closely and each alarm must be evaluated to ensure that critical needs are addressed. Alarms report emergency situations as listed earlier as well as building environmental emergencies. In addition, there are status and control requests received from both maintenance staff and departments that require response from the Communication Specialists.