Campus Building Cooling Issues: Update and Response

To: All students, faculty and staff

From: Robert Cramer, Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration

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I’m writing today to share information about the reduced availability of cooling in campus workspaces beginning next week.

On June 17, we experienced a broken chilled water line, which has significantly reduced the cooling (air conditioning) capacity for our campus. As a result, UW–Madison campus buildings are experiencing higher than normal temperatures and humidity. Compounding matters, the forecast for the coming week has summer temperatures climbing into the 90s.

Importantly, campus remains and will remain open for business. Campus leadership is prioritizing patient care and research laboratories for cooling, so they do not experience disruptions.

Facilities, Planning & Management crews are working on short-term mitigation measures as well as a long-term fix. As a campus, we will need to take additional steps to ensure we keep priority areas cool.

These additional steps will create uncomfortably warm working conditions in some areas and adjustments to building use in others. We are working to rectify the situation as quickly as possible, though we expect this process will take several weeks.

Additional updates about campus operations for Monday will be shared via email and on wisc.edu.

Thank you for your flexibility and understanding.