If it was a belated April Fool’s joke, no one was laughing – they were sweating.

Over the weekend, the heaters in Coleman Hall were left on, which resulted in frustrated faculty and students and shortened classes.

In an e-mail sent to English professors, it advised faculty to “wear their shorts today.”

“My class rebelled, so we went outside today,” English professor Olga Abella said. “I think they were socially refusing to stay in there. I think they felt they were going to disintegrate.”

Two rumors were circulating on why the heaters were left on. One rumor was the university forgot to flip the switch to turn off the heat Friday; the other, which was circulating among students in Coleman, was university left the heat on to conserve cooling energy costs.

Blair Lord, vice president for academic affairs, dispelled the latter theory and said if the university were trying to save money, it would have left the heaters off.

The heaters were turned on in the first place because the weather last Friday dwindled in the lower to mid 60s while also experiencing rain.

An e-mail sent to English professors stated the reasoning for the hot temperatures, which exceeded 90 degrees, proved the first rumor correct. Facilities planning and management directors were unavailable for comment.

One student, Sarah Bramstedt, who had all three of her classes Monday in Coleman, said the hot temperatures were ridiculous considering the relatively fair weather outside.

“We had class cut short by a half hour,” said Bramstedt, a junior English major. “It was too damn hot.”

The heating pipes have not been switched to air conditioning because of concerns the cold weather is not over with. Heat is distributed throughout campus through underground steam lines.

Typically, the air conditioning, which calls for the steam valves to be switched off and replaced with water-filled cooling and equipment, is switched on in late May.

“The weather temperature fluctuation is generally too great (in the spring) to fill the water-filled cooling towers,” Carol Strode, director of facilities planning and management, previously said. “There is too much of a possibility of severe damage to equipment if the weather suddenly turned below freezing for any length of time.”

Strode said the heating-to-air conditioning switch typically takes two to three days per building and is simply not done by the flip of a switch.

Professors in Coleman wish it were that easy.

“When it’s hot, that is when it is the absolutely worst to teach,” said English professor Fern Kory, who admitted she cut classes short on Monday.

But Abella said students, more so than professors, suffer especially with finals week looming.

“It only adds to the stress level, their fatigue,” she said. “It’s an unpleasant way to end the semester.”