10 minutes. As I was waiting in the bathroom, the cold air slowly seeping in, I counted each minute that passed. That’s how long it took for my bathroom to finally drain enough water for me to leap across the puddle to the door—20 minutes to drain completely. Since freshman year, my friends have dealt with sinks falling off the wall, brown water, centipede pets, and more. Issues like these are recurring and common when living in Lamson Hall.
Lamson Hall itself is a very old building. It was said to have been constructed in 1946 - 1947. While searching for more information on Lamson Hall on the James White Library website, I found old pictures in their photograph database. One photo taken inside a Lamson dorm room looked exactly as it was now. As if they just took a photo of the dorm and put a black-and-white filter over it. Seeing these pictures made me question when and what exactly they renovated in Lamson over the years.
As most undergraduate students are required to live in Lamson for all four years, students expect the dorms to be able to provide them with adequate housing. Yet the reality is that the housing is subpar, and students are not able to leave unless we are eligible to live off-campus or in University Towers. We chose this college and invested our money in the belief that our needs would be properly met. We paid our housing costs with the expectation that the last thing to worry about in college is our living conditions. One study exploring the relationship between housing, neighborhoods, and mental well-being found that with low-quality housing there is a negative impact on mental wellness. There are more studies that support this result. And as the school often reminds us, our mental health is important and has an effect on our academics. If we have low-quality housing, which can result in poor mental well-being, we can assume that it would also affect our grades. So is it too much to ask for dorm renovations?
Back in 2021, Howard University students organized a 9-day sit-in protesting the mold found in their room and other housing quality issues. Other university students have sent in complaints about mold in their dorms, and usually, these universities act on those complaints. Let us also keep in mind that these universities do not require students to stay in the same dorm building for all four years. Complaints about the quality of Lamson existed way before my freshman year. Yet, each year, we complain about the same thing. Sinks breaking, mold growth, plumbing issues, outdated mattresses, and more. We understand that Andrews University might not have the funding for renovations. However, with the newly built multimillion-dollar Wellness Center, does Andrews truly not have any funding for Lamson’s renovations?
Despite all these issues students have in Lamson, one thing we can all agree on is our appreciation for the maintenance team. Once we send in a request, maintenance arrives swiftly and, most of the time, fixes the issues. However, there are some issues that are more complex than utilizing a vacuum or tightening pipes. Wouldn’t it be more beneficial to fix the problems at their roots instead of the symptoms??
I asked some residents in Lamson Hall about their experience with living in the building. These were their opinions:
“Living in Lamson is definitely an experience. I had heard so many horror stories of different people who had lived in this building before I even came to Andrews. It’s become almost a rite of passage for female students at Andrews. I personally think that rite of passage needs to end. Thankfully, we have great staff and Deans who all care about the well-being of their residents, but I think Andrews really needs to look into upgrading their residential halls in order to better serve and support their students.”
Devaney Ross (senior, psychology) 3rd Floor RA
“It gets hard to breathe sometimes, but no worries, it’s either smoke, mold, or flu season.”
Jennifer Orozco (sophomore, sociology ) 2nd Floor Resident
“My experience at Lamson has been pretty interesting. When I first started living here, the outside would be warm, but my room would be extremely cold. During the first weeks of the school year, my shower flooded. The walls would also get wet because the girl who lived above me had a leaking sink, which made our whole wall and floor wet. It’s been okay though, I like the people here. It’s nice having a community and being able to hang out with your friends. I like the social environment here but not the physical environment with all the leaking pipes and old mattresses.”
Pamela Reis (junior, psychology) 1st Floor Resident
“I’ve lived in Lamson for two out of my four years going here and I've always seen problems with the quality of the dorm. I’ve lived in the basement, and as someone who is allergic to mold, it definitely makes me nervous to live in areas that have had mold in the past and probably have mold presently. Recently my suitemates and I have been having issues with our shower drain. This was an issue at the beginning of the year where there was so much hair left over from last year in the drain that the water couldn’t go through the pipes and our floor flooded. I’ve heard other stories of residents having issues with the quality of the dorms and honestly there needs to be some serious renovations made to Lamson.”
Alaina Burghardt (senior, international relations and Spanish) Basement Resident .
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.