Freshman Elizabeth Thompson walks into Stewart as tornado sirens begin to sound at the University of Mississippi, Monday, Oct. 13, 2014.
Freshmen every year struggle with the conditions of the residence halls at Ole Miss. Many consider the dorms out-of-date and in need of renovation.
According to Stockard resident Trey Oates, some of these incidents even have him concerned about his health.
“Living in the dorm is not ideal for my health because I tend to get sick all of the time,” Oates said. “The air vents aren’t clean. They are blowing out dust. One out of three elevators work a week, and we do not have trashcans on our floors, which causes bugs and smells all throughout the building.”
In three of the main freshman dorms, Martin, Crosby and Stockard, students complain about washers and dryers being broken, which cost $1.25 per load on every machine. There is also the inconvenience of having to find quarters to pay to clean their clothes because the Ole Miss Express card machines are not working.
“The washers and dryers eat my money and very few of them start,” Martin resident Allison Turbeville said. “Over half of them do not work when I go to wash my clothes. The other day, I went to put my laundry in the washer and came back 30 minutes later. The washer filled up with water and never drained, so my clothes were never even cleaned.”
“Last week, I put my clothes in the dryer for 60 minutes; when I came back my clothes were still wet,” Stockard resident Fletcher Malloy said. “The hot air in the dryer was not working, so I had to find quarters to put my stuff in a different dryer and wait another hour for them to finish.”
Students complain about the conditions of Crosby, Kincannon and Stewart the most – overflowing trashcans, ants and a lack of hot water, to name just a few problems. Freshman Claudia Monfort has been living in Crosby and has had two incidents of ants invading her room. Her roommate, Meredith Keefer, said the trashcans outside of Crosby are “always overflowing.”
“We have had 2,000 ants in our room, so we moved our beds into one of our friends rooms for two nights,” Montfort said. “We called the maintenance men, and they did not come for about four to five days to spray, so we had to buy bug spray to get rid of them ourselves, and now, there are dead ants everywhere.”
Patrick Myers, a resident of Kincannon, is not happy with the condition of the building.
“I live in Kincannon on the fifth floor and the hot water does not work on some days,” Myers said. “There are five showers and only two showers have doors.”
The Housing Department at Ole Miss wants to address the issues and what students need to do if they have complaints or problems with their dorm room. According to Jennifer McClure, assistant director for marketing, the Housing Department wants students to have a good experience living in the dorms and encourages their feedback.
“When a student has a concern about our facilities, we ask them to go to our website and complete a maintenance request,” McClure said. “They just give some basic information, tell about the problem and that will immediately go into our maintenance database, and as soon as someone is available, they will see about the situation and do what they can to help.”
McClure said that this process will also keep the students updated via email on when the work order has been looked at and when it has been completed.
“Our mission is to provide secure, supportive and comfortable communities designed to contribute to the personal and academic growth of each residential student, and with that, we take very seriously our student’s experiences living with us — the good and the bad,” McClure said. “We encourage their feedback, and we really want living on campus to enhance their collegiate experiences.”
