While students from most classes were making their way out of the buildings, some didn’t let a little darkness stop them from learning during the blackout on Nov. 29.
One teacher Andrew Young, a math professor, continued with his Math 119 lesson.
Jessica Hollins, 28, and one of Young’s Math 119 students said that there were about 10 to 15 students there that evening.
“We continued with lecture with the emergency lights on,” said Hollins. “We moved our desks up close [to the front of the room] and continued with class until we were told by [Peter Stathis] the head of the Math Department that we needed to evacuate the building.”
The Arroyo Seco building is one of the few buildings that have emergency lights in the classrooms.
Hollins and fellow classmate Maria Castillo, 26, said that if they weren’t told that they had to evacuate, Young would have most likely gone on with the rest of the class.
They said that Young had told them earlier in the semester that during the Northridge earthquake he continued to teach his class, Stathis told them the story as well when he was checking in on them, before telling them that they had to evacuate the building.
The students were let out around 6 p.m.
Young said that they were trying to make sure that the students were prepared for the next math class. They were a bit behind schedule and with finals coming up soon, they couldn’t afford the loss of time.
“There never is a good time for a power outage,” said Young. “But that was a particularly bad time.”
Steve Dehner, 28 an English major, was in the middle of leading a Supplemental Instruction for Anthropology 101 in the Cimmarusti Science Center when the blackout occurred.
The Cimmarusti building has emergency lights in the hallway, so they opened up the doors to get some of the light.
“We continued the SI by cell phone illumination,” said Dehner. “Everybody opened up their cell phones. We tried to continue it as long as we could until somebody came around and told us that all classes were canceled and we should all clear out.”