When paying thousands of dollars to live on campus, students expect a clean and safe living environment.
We don’t expect to have to spend more money on air purifiers and dehumidifiers.
We shouldn’t have to.
At Piedmont University, undergraduate student-athletes are required to live in on-campus housing. Many regular students choose to live on campus for the “college experience” or if they live too far away from home to commute. According to the university’s residential living website, more than 750 students live on campus.
The cheapest housing options on campus for the 2024-2025 academic year are Purcell and Wallace Halls, charging residents $3,200 a semester. Village and Ipswich residents pay $4,000 a semester for room and board. Living on campus is not cheap.
Students are required to clean their rooms when moving out and are informed that a cleaning crew will come in and deep clean the room over the summer. Students are also informed that maintenance will come through the rooms and fix what is broken over the summer. Maintenance (pg. 13-14) is also available per request throughout the academic year.
Although Residence Life provides support services, the students shouldn’t have to rely on them on a weekly basis for the amount they are paying to live on campus. Especially when the school promotes all the off-season work they are doing to keep the dorms in good condition.
“Sometimes it looks like they don’t even do any of the cleaning they say they do over the summer break,” said junior village resident Peyton Gates. “It’s obvious because there are stains, dust and dead bugs all over the rooms.”
Students move into rooms that have to be deeply cleaned the minute they arrive due to the filthy status of the dorms.
If students are paying for the rooms to be cleaned and fixed over the summer, then why are we moving into dorms covered with dust, stains and dead bugs?
Aside from the dirt and grime, students also struggle with mold across campus.
Junior Sierra Judson has experienced mold in each dorm she has lived in on campus. Purcell Hall, Johnson Hall and the Village.
“Mold in student housing is both unacceptable and hazardous,” said Judson. “It’s a health risk that has been ignored for too long yet it’s a persistent challenge at Piedmont.”
Students discover mold in their rooms and immediately contact Residence Life. Residence Life sends maintenance in to clean it up and test the humidity of the room before moving on.
Just cleaning the mold is not solving the problem.
Maintenance tries to help students and puts in effort to supply students with preventative measures such as dehumidifiers. Without Residence Life’s support, maintenance can only do so much. Students cannot submit a maintenance request themselves due to school policy. They must go through their Residence Assistant.
“It’s concerning because this problem not only affects my living environment but also my overall health,” said Judson.
Mold can bring out many health conditions such as asthma, allergic reactions, cognitive issues, mental health issues, weakened immune systems and even potential liver cancer.
Living in environments filled with mold is not sanitary or safe for students, and when on-campus housing is required for over 420 student-athletes at Piedmont, it is a disservice to the student body to not have control over the issue.
We deserve to comfortably live in a healthy and safe environment, even more so because we pay thousands of dollars for it.
