For many students on campus, being enrolled at John Carroll University is their first time experiencing living in a residence hall with other peers. In addition to being away from home, these students are adjusting to having a roommate, communal bathrooms and establishing boundaries with others on their floor.
As settling into the new academic year continues, several residents have already expressed their concerns on social media and during conversations about housekeeping in their dorms. The residence halls that come up the most regarding these complaints, as seen on YikYak, are Hamlin and Campion.
“I live on Hamlin second floor and everything’s been pretty good so far except maybe the bathrooms,” an anonymous student told The Carroll News. “Only two of the stalls actually lock properly and it’s usually pretty dirty. Also, the third-floor girls’ bathrooms have urinals in them for some reason.”
“When students move out for the academic year, every room condition is checked for damages, which is noted accordingly and passed along to facilities,” said Kyle Wolfe, director of residence life at JCU. “Our facilities team works to repair any damages that we find and our housekeeping team cleans the rooms. Prior to students returning for the academic year, housekeeping cleans every residence hall room on campus.”
Over the summer, one residence hall is designated specifically for JCU students who are living on campus. In addition, guests from camps and conferences stay in the other halls. After summer housing and different gatherings are over, another check is performed by facilities to assess any damage.
“I lived in Hamlin for my sophomore year,” another anonymous student told The Carroll News. “Some of the laundry machines in Hamlin were out of order at times and I had to do [my laundry] at very off times. Also, some of the dryers didn’t work very well, so I had to hang up a lot of my stuff around my room to dry out.”
The student continued, “The biggest complaint I had about Hamlin was the bathroom, [as] it was pretty gross. The floor was really dirty, some of the soap dispensers were often empty, stalls sometimes had no toilet paper and the showers never really got cleaned. The urinals were out of order for much of the year. One of the toilets in one of the stalls had a weak handle. The showers had random and dirty things in them and the floor was accumulating dirt and was a yellowish color. There was also food that never got cleaned off the floor in a section of the hallway towards the end of the year. Hamlin was definitely my least favorite of all the dorms I’ve been in.”
In addition to resident assistants (RAs), there are faculty employed as area coordinators, who have responsibilities such as consistently inspecting residence halls, supervising RAs, settling roommate conflicts, as well as overseeing room changes and programming.
“Our area coordinators perform walks of their residence halls to identify any unreported facilities or housekeeping issues,” said Wolfe. “During these walks, notes are taken and reported to facilities and housekeeping with a work order. On their next walk, they are able to follow up on any previously reported work orders.”
While RAs are on their on-call shifts, they also walk the residence halls and report any concerns to facilities or housekeeping. Whenever a resident reports a concern to an RA or area coordinator, they are available to assist the student with submitting a work order and contacting facilities when there is an emergency.
All JCU residents are expected to help with maintaining a clean atmosphere in the areas of residence halls with the most traffic, including lounges, bathrooms, laundry rooms and study rooms.
“We address any issue that is reported to us with a work order to ensure that facilities and housekeeping are aware of the reported issue and have all of the information needed to address the concern,” said Wolfe. “For laundry rooms specifically, if the issue is directly related to a washing machine or dryer, a work order is submitted to CSC ServiceWorks, who maintains all of our laundry machines.”
Wolfe continued, “Students can also submit a work order directly to facilities or CSC ServiceWorks. We work closely with facilities, housekeeping and CSC ServiceWorks to ensure that all work orders are addressed. During busier times, our facilities team does prioritize work orders based on the situation to ensure emergency situations and non-emergent situations are all handled.”
“I live in Campion Hall and it’s been pretty great so far,” said Mateo Carrasco ’29. “I live on the bottom floor… and the rooms are great. They control temperature very well, the ceilings are very tall and there’s a lot more room than the dorms I’ve seen in Dolan.”
Carrasco continued with, “The bathrooms are a lot better than I had expected and I haven’t experienced any trouble getting my laundry done or dishes washed because of the easy accessibility of the kitchen and laundry room.”
Over the summer, renovations to two Campion Hall bathrooms were performed. JCU plans to continue renovating and upgrading restrooms in Campion and Hamlin Halls over the next few summers.
