Pack it Up!
Adding onto the weight of classes and upcoming finals, residents of the John Ballantyne Hall are being asked to move to a new hall due to plumbing issues. Recently, the University has been renovating their residence halls to make them more welcoming and suitable places that students can call their home away from home. Working slowly around the campus, John B. located in the North Quad was one of the last halls scheduled to be renovated. Unfortunately, that schedule has been accelerated and the residents of John Ballantyne are forced to move elsewhere..
Originally, John B. was scheduled to be closed after the Spring 2023 semester but the building had other ideas. Starting in late September with some leaking pipes and noticeable water damage in the basement, the problem soon spread to the flooding and shutdown of showers on the first and second floors. First floor residents currently need to go up to the third floor to share the third floor showers, while the second floor residents have one shower that is functional, or the residents must go to a neighboring hall to shower.
After an inspection it was revealed that the problem and subsequent repairs were found too extensive to delay or patch up with a temporary fix. “We went through multiple options of what we could potentially do,” Executive Director of Student Life, Mr. Josh O’Connor, said. “If we keep the students in the building, the building water would have to be turned off a minimum of five weeks. Obviously, that’s not okay.”
Left with little choice, the Housing department decided to instead relocate the residents of John B. and split them between the freshly renovated Carter and Eiselen Hall which have just been finished this month. “It sounds odd but this is the least impactful situation that we could have done,” Mr. O’Connor remarked on the decision.
Rest assured that this problem was unforeseen, and the university did not put residents into John B. knowing that there would be serious issues that would mandate a closure. Mr. O’Connor adamantly stated,“We would not have moved residents in if we were aware of this. We were not aware this was going to happen.” Obviously this situation is a great deal less than ideal – as is the solution – but it has been deemed “absolutely necessary” as the building cannot wait for repairs until winter break.
“It’s safer in a way with the bathrooms and the flooding of the bathrooms,” Alessandra Soto-Esparza, English and Spanish, ‘26, a current resident of John B. said. “I’m happy to move to a place that is safer, but I also feel that we should get some sort of compensation for living in a place that wasn’t meant to be lived in this year.” This seems to be the overall consensus of students concerning the move, displeased about having to move during the weeks leading up to finals but pleased to move to a newly renovated hall with functional showers. The RA’s of John B. have declined to make a comment at this time.
Move-in started on November 18 and residents are able to move as fast or as slow as they like, as long as they are completely moved out of John B. and into their new rooms by December 16. If you know someone in John B. please offer them a helping hand!