Southern University will return to its normal in-person class schedule next week after a power outage over the weekend temporarily shut down the Baton Rouge campus and moved classes online.
The outage was caused by a blown transformer at the Clark Activity Center, knocking out power to most of the campus. A statement posted to the university’s social media said power was restored across campus Thursday.
This isn’t the first time the campus has struggled with power outages. An outage on September 1 canceled classes for the day. There were also multiple outages last school year.
Southern, like most institutions of its size, owns a portion of the equipment that powers campus, so university maintenance was left scrambling to find the issue. The school also lacks some of the diagnostic tools that a traditional utility company would have, according to Public Service Commissioner Davante Lewis, which made finding the problem harder.
Lewis, who worked with Southern during the outage, said the university needs a power study — a comprehensive overview of its campus’ infrastructure to determine the strengths and weaknesses of its electrical infrastructure.
That study is forthcoming, he said, and will serve as a starting point to figure out which parts of campus need maintenance to hopefully cut down on power outages.
Ultimately, the university’s power issues come down to fiscal prioritization, Lewis said, due to limited funding.
“You're not necessarily going to be looking fully at investments in your electric system, because you may need to repair a building or you may need to redo a dorm or whatnot,” he said.
Southern’s power infrastructure has fallen by the wayside, Lewis added. As the campus ages and new buildings are added, the odds of an outage go up.
Southern University officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.
