Moving into a dorm room is a quintessential college experience. But the presence of mold in IU dorms means some students in the class of 2023 won’t have traditional rooms.
Mold has been a problem at IU for a few years, with small outbreaks in 2016 and 2017 in Teter Quad and McNutt Quad. The mold problem reached its climax in 2018 when several students in McNutt, Foster Quad, Teter and Ashton Center reported getting sick. After inspection, many rooms were found to have mold somewhere in the room or ventilation system.
Many students in McNutt and Foster were relocated to other housing, and the university closed the two residence halls for the 2019-2020 school year, accelerating the planned renovation timeline.
Although McNutt, Foster and half of Teter are closed to students for the next year, Residential Programs and Services is working to create adequate room for all incoming freshmen.
“One of the ways we managed was that Union Street Apartments, which up until last year used to be exclusively for upperclassmen, will now house first year students,” said Sara Ivey Lucas, the RPS interim director for Residential Life.
Previously, Union Street had only eight staff members, but in an effort to create the residence hall environment for freshmen, the apartment complex added 18 staff members, including Resident Assistants, Ivey Lucas said.
Unfortunately, not all first-year students are going to be entering IU with permanent housing. Ivey Lucas said roughly 215 students will be temporarily placed in overflow housing in Eigenmann Hall, Spruce Hall, Forest Quad and Briscoe Quad.
Another change to dorm rosters this year is the move of the Kelley Living Learning Community and the Hoosier Link community to Eigenmann. RPS Interim Director Luke Leftwich said the KLLC will take up six floors and house roughly 500 students.
The official census will be on Labor Day, but David Johnson, the vice provost of Enrollment Management, said unofficial numbers show over 8,200 freshman will be heading to campus Aug. 17-20, which is 103 more freshmen than last year.
Some students in Eigenmann and Forest will live in student lounges located on each floor, which have been temporarily converted into living spaces, with four to six students each. Some students in Briscoe and Spruce will live in temporarily renovated triple or quadruple rooms, upgraded to account for more students, Ivey Lucas said.
“It is our goal to have all students out of overflow housing during the fall semester and, at the latest, by the start of spring semester,” Leftwich said.
