The motto of the University of Texas at Austin is: "What starts here changes the world." While this phrase refers to UT's success in education, research and athletics, it could just as easily allude to the university's leadership in dormitory fire protection. The school just completed a six-year program to install sprinklers, as well as address other life safety issues, in all of its residence halls. And that's no small task at one of the largest universities in the country. UT's dorms house approximately 7,000 students during the academic year. But until 2000, none of them contained fire sprinklers. In the late 1990s, the Texas state fire marshall (SFM) declared a mandate for all state-owned high-rise residences to employ sprinkler systems. While the majority of UT's dorms are low-rise, one dorm complex, Jester Center, consists of a 14-story tower and a 10-story tower.
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