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One day after a Feb. 22 fire left 12 families homeless, a large assembly room at the Family Housing Office was nearly half full of donated clothes and household articles.
“We probably have enough adult clothing now,” says housing director Jim Day. “But what is really needed are household items, utensils, pots, pans, small appliances, toiletry items and the like.”
In addition, a fund to support a relief effort for the more than 40 people left homeless has been established through the University of Georgia Foundation.
“These funds will be used to fill in the gaps not met by donated materials,” Day says. “Any excess will be used in support of Red Cross relief efforts.” Day also says that donated items that cannot be used will be passed on to the Salvation Army or the Potter’s House.
Anyone wishing to make a monetary contribution to the relief effort should mail a check, made out to the University of Georgia Foundation and earmarked for the Family Housing Fire Relief Fund, to 824 South Milledge Ave., Athens, GA 30602.
It has been determined that the fire, which substantially damaged Building H of the Family and Graduate Housing Complex, was accidentally caused by combustible materials ignited by an electric wall heater.
University fire safety coordinator Frank Edwards said Feb. 23 that his official determination is that clothing, paper and plastic materials too close to the wall heater smoldered for an undetermined period of time, then ignited. The blaze quickly spread through apartment #209, melting a window and entering the building’s attic through the outside eaves.
Unfortunately, the fire entered the attic precisely at the location of a fire wall, Edwards said. Burning on both sides of the fire wall, it quickly spread throughout the attic.
Edwards said the family living in the apartment left on the afternoon of Feb. 19 and did not return until the night of Feb. 22. Due to mild weather conditions, he said, the heater did not run enough to ignite the adjacent materials until much colder temperatures arrived the night of Feb. 21.
Athens-Clarke County fire department was called at 1:43 a.m. Feb. 22 to the apartment complex, located at the corner of College Station and East Campus roads. Much of the roof was burned, and there was extensive smoke and water damage throughout the two-story, 12-apartment wing of the building. No injuries were reported.
Building H houses student families with children. Each of the 12 damaged apartments housed two to five residents. The other wing, with another 12 apartments, did not sustain significant damage.
Terry College takes top spot in research productivity
The Terry College of Business has the most productive researchers in one of the hottest careers in business--management information systems. The MIS faculty at UGA ranked first in research productivity, according to an analysis of the two leading MIS research journals.
Two Purdue University professors reviewed all of the articles published in MIS Quarterly and Information Systems Research from 1993 through 1997, and Terry College faculty were credited with authoring or co-authoring 12 of the 210 published papers.
Thirty universities were ranked in all. Trailing UGA were the University of California at Irvine, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Georgia State University and the University of British Columbia. In 1995, the last time a comparable analysis of research productivity was conducted, UGA ranked fifth.
Professors Richard Watson and Alan Dennis were singled out in a companion ranking of the 30 most productive researchers to publish in the two journals. Watson was the sixth most prolific writer during the time period measured, and Dennis was rated 23rd.
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