Vanderbilt was literally in the dark this morning, due to a blackout that lasted two and half hours.

At approximately 7:30 a.m., a campus-wide power outage occurred and lasted for roughly two and a half hours. According to a statement released by the university, the power outage was caused by a failure at the Nashville Electric Service's Sharondale substation and a subsequent malfunction at the Vanderbilt power station.

However, Teresa Corlew, the NES director of corporate communications, said she believes the power outage was caused more by problems with electrical equipment in the Vanderbilt substation and not with the NES apparatus.

"NES staff helped Vanderbilt staff to isolate and do some switching (to fix the breakdown), but the problem was with Vanderbilt equipment, and no one here is certain why the power outage happened," said Corlew.

During the blackout, electricity across campus was wiped out: alarm clocks didn't sound, lights remained dark and the wireless Internet connection shut off. Students and faculty experienced difficulties printing papers, photocopying lecture outlines and arriving to class on time. Although the university tried to maintain its normal class schedule, some classes were disrupted due to a lack of light.

"My country music class was cancelled this morning. It's in Sarratt Cinema, so it was pitch black in there," said sophomore Catherine Ruelens, a student in one of the cancelled classes.

Computer services such as ACORN and Discover Library failed, and campus security also became an issue as dorm doors had to be left open due to the failure of the card reader system.

The electrical failure also affected the Vanderbilt steam plant, which heats the water and buildings on campus, resulting in cold showers for many students. Although the electrical power was restored at around 10 a.m., the heat took much longer to reinstate, returning at around 1 p.m.