Hi Faculty Chairs, Techs and Instrument Administrator 

I attended a meeting this morning of all campus area coordinators concerning the planned power outage test which will occur in January,  Andre Hutchinson, the AVP of Facilities is organizing the planned campus wide power shut down test to occur on Friday the 9th of January at 7 AM. The actual outage is planned to last no more than 5 minutes though the campus may be running on the campus wide back up generators for up to several hours before the full test is completed, Facilities personnel will be in the buildings to monitor important infrastructure systems functions and there will be multiple notifications before this test happens. That being said, there is always room for something to be missed in the preparation and execution. Also, I will be out of the country when this test happens. It will be at 7 AM on Friday which is normally a flex remote day for most or all of you. I would like to identify a tech from each department who will be here to check up on their department's instruments and systems on the day of the test. The only class happening in the SCST is the science of food and cooking so it shouldn't be affected by the test. I think it is important that before the holidays we have a full list of instruments that should be power surge protected, instruments that have or should have an Uninterruptible Power Supply and instruments that need to be checked on and possibly reset after a power outage. I have already received this list from several departments and I know that others are working through their list. If a UPS or other protective measure that is needed to shield an instrument cannot be put into place before the date of the test, we can shut it down and exclude it though it should be followed up with to ensure that the protection is put into place as soon as possible. Elevators will be shut down during the testing period, so if there are any disabled students, faculty or staff that need to be in the building please plan for this contingency. I will send out a notice to all the researchers in the SCST on Monday and there will also be a campus wide announcement on that day. I am asking Anthony Basilio  to be my alternate to be here for the before, during and after of the test. Please let me know if you have any immediate questions or concerns.

Best,

Keith