By: Peyton Saunders | Staff Writer
The elevator in Schewel is operational for the first time this year after being down since mid-October 2025.
Students, faculty and staff with mobility issues, heavy things to transport or those who just did not feel like climbing the stairs have been tirelessly reaching out to the school deans and the maintenance staff about this issue. So, what took so long?
The Assistant Vice President of Operations, Michael Vaughan, explained, “The initial delay started with the vendor that does our maintenance contract for elevators, and they frankly dropped the ball,” Vaughn said that letters had been sent explaining the delay. He goes on to explain what occurred with the elevator when the contracting team arrived, “We thought it was just 1 or 2 parts. It ended up being a whole slew of them, because each time they got one, they realized another one had an issue.”
The University of Lynchburg is among many buildings and businesses that outsource maintenance to either independent contractors or the original manufacturer of the elevator. Elevator manufacturers typically recommend that customers use the same company to install, maintain and repair their elevators.
The University of Lynchburg elevators are manufactured by KONE, which also recommends its own maintenance. Modern elevators contain more complicated machinery in their design, such as a motherboard, which had to be replaced in the Schewel elevator, according to Vaughan.
Other issues, such as the campus power outage during the recent snowfall, are handled by external contractors. All of these skills involve different specialties and trades, which the University of Lynchburg outsources.
While larger maintenance issues are handled by off-campus contractors, smaller or more urgent on-campus issues are managed by internal staff. Kaitlyn Bain, a senior who lives in The Townhouses, said she previously reached out regarding an issue with her oven. Due to the urgency of the fire hazard, the University of Lynchburg’s maintenance crew responded promptly and addressed it.
While the broken Schewel elevator seems not to have impacted students and professors to the point that they cannot get to their classes, Dr. Michael Robinson discussed what has been done in the past for students with mobility issues in the absence of elevators: “I had a student who was a Gulf War vet and she was going to college afterwards. She had injured her knee so she couldn’t get up all the stairs. There was no elevator in the [Hopwood] building, so they rearranged it so that the class was in a larger classroom space that used to exist down there.”
There were other accessible options to Schewel Hall while the elevator was down. The Access Services Librarian, Jeff Harbin, explained that the library elevator is old and used mostly for transporting books, but it is available to staff and students who may need it. It may not have been communicated widely, likely because the library elevator is not designed for heavy use, but it can be made available in an emergency.
Students can and should submit work requests when something goes wrong in a dorm or elsewhere on campus. Vaughan also suggested following up with him at vaughan_m1@lynchburg.edu if you feel your request has been forgotten or is not being properly prioritized.
