On Tuesday, May 5, 2026 at 6:45 p.m., Union experienced a campus-wide power outage which temporarily disrupted campus operations. Power was restored to campus at 7:44 p.m. that night.
The power outage was caused off campus by Union’s utility provider, National Grid, and also impacted the greater city of Schenectady. The outage was not caused by on-campus electrical systems.
During the power outage, campus key cards were nonfunctional, making it difficult for students to access many buildings including dormitories. Many students communicated with each other through windows to access the dorms during the outage. As the outage occurred during peak dinner hours, campus dining facilities continued to serve students to the best of their ability, and the college even ordered pizza from off-campus to feed the community.
Vivian Zheng ‘27 described her confusion during the outage, saying, “I had just come back from the gym and was planning to get food, but because of the power outage everything in Reamer was put on pause.” “I then thought about going to my room to order food but couldn’t scan into my dorm,” she continued.
At about 6:55 p.m., approximately 10 minutes into the outage, Reamer Campus Center also had a fire alarm go off. Marc Donovan, Director of Facilities Services, told Concordiensis that this fire alarm was unrelated to the power outage.
