Colleges, due to their age and ware due to time, are often subject to scrutiny in terms of the quality of their housing. Elizabethtown College has been addressing that issue of their own through the renovation of their dorms including the most recent ones of Myer and Royer.
Still, students may find that their living standards are not always what they want them to be. This occurred for one student when they conducted their own air quality test in their Hackman South Apartment. According to a measure of the air, which came from an Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) test, there were mold spores in the air.
Senior Vice President for Administration and Finance Jerry Silberman wrote to students on Jan. 26 and assured that “the IAQ test the individual conducted is insufficient to determine accurate air quality, and cannot be considered as any form of a qualitative test.” In addition, the College ran their own test and the results came back on Jan. 31. These were discussed in an additional email on the same day where the College was “pleased to share that all of the tests confirmed safe and healthy air quality levels. Additionally, there were no levels of microbial growth found within the building.”
Dean of Students Nichole Gonzalez did not respond when reached out to for a comment, but at this point it seems like the situation is well behind the College in their eyes, although not everyone is completely sure of all the details. Even with the two emails sent, some students do not read their emails or skim, which can result in misinformation surrounding the situation. Both emails were even titled “A Message from Elizabethtown College,” which not everyone would feel inclined to read. Due to this, people formed their own perspectives based on what they heard.
When prompted by a conversation about the situation, most that do not live in the apartments have varying levels of understanding as it did not directly pertain to them. The idea of mold alone causes a feeling of discomfort and slight disgust.
For students that do live in the apartments, and even more specifically Hackman South, their feelings are a lot stronger and a lot more specific. One resident, CJ, had this to say, “So what happened was that somebody had a humidifier that was able to test the mold in the air in Hackman South and their detector said that there was a lot of mold in the room. They sent it to Elizabethtown and informed them and asked them to check it, while Elizabethtown told them that there was no mold. They emphasized that the humidifier was store-bought and disputed the situation, but we still believe that[’s] why people were getting a little sick.”
So, not everyone is calmed or completely convinced by the second email that Etown sent out assuring that they had found no mold because of the way that it was measured and then eventually handled.
Moving forward, with the help of both the students and staff involved in housing and students at the College, ideally situations similar to this, can continue to be addressed swiftly and promptly. Furthermore, it may be beneficial for all dorms and apartments to be regularly checked for mold as a way to ease that feeling of anxiety and fear or sickness that many students have.
