Tunnels and other places you shouldn't be
Stay here for more than two months and you'll hear about the tunnel system underneath campus. It's not unique to Clemson University - every university has one. Clemson has a main system and several smaller tunnels underneath various buildings. The main entrance is near the Central Energies Building. Across campus, look for round grates, usually with steam rising from them. They always emit an audible hiss. Don't bother trying those grates, as they are chained to the ladders that lead into the tunnels. There are also entrances in various mechanical rooms in university buildings. The tunnels themselves are fairly nondescript: steam, electrical, and data lines run along both walls, fluorescent lights above, and temperatures over 100 degrees.
Mechanical rooms are in the uppermost and lowermost floors of almost every university building. Look for any door with a "5A" or "5-11" penciled above the lock. These rooms house boilers, electrical equipment, fire suppression, datacom, et cetera. These rooms are almost always locked. The rooms underneath Strode Tower and Daniel Hall are linked via a large tunnel under the sidewalk. Like the steam tunnels, signs of these rooms are sometimes outside buildings. Look for metal grates that you can walk over, usually at least six feet square. Stand on one, look down, and you'll see some doors and a patio of sorts. The most prominent one of these is behind Cooper Library. Cooper is full of mechanical rooms, one of which is two-story.
Roofs are just that: roofs. Nothing special. But you can get spectacular views and heckle unaware passers-by. They are usually accessed via mechanical rooms on the top floors of buildings. Even if the mechanical room doors aren't locked, roof access doors almost ALWAYS are.
The belltower on Tillman Hall was once a difficult place to access (reached by a communicating door on a front room of the second floor, as I recall), but with the installation of the carillon, it is now regularly available for inspection following live performances.
WARNING! These locations are off-limits to unauthorized personnel. This includes students. If you want to see something that is off-limits, ask someone in Facilities or Housing Maintenance. They will probably be kind enough to give you a supervised tour, and you will not be trespassing.
Dave VanDeventer, a manager at the Physical Plant, states flatly that anyone caught trespassing in the tunnels WILL be arrested.
