Miscommunication between the students and offices of Residence Life (Res Life) and Facilities Management has led to dissatisfaction.

Thomas Nocka ’19 and Malcolm Davis ’19, two residents of 318 W Louther last semester, “believe that Res Life overcharged us for the damages,” according to Davis.

Nocka, Davis and their housemates received damage fees which totaled over $4000 at the beginning of the summer, according to Nocka. “We emailed Res Life confused about why the charges were so much for a few charges and they couldn’t explain them,” he said. These charges included “a few holes in the walls, a broken chair and a broken door” which they did not dispute. They also received charges for wall paint which Nocka claims “faded from natural causes.”

According to Kristen Kostecky, associate vice president of Campus Operations, “The fees charged [to students] reflect the cost to the college to make the repair and/or replacement…the cost [can] consist of the labor (determined by a labor rate multiplied by hours worked) plus the cost of materials.” Kostecky further said the damage fees cover what is needed to bring a residence facility “back to its original condition.”

“There is an inspection process by staff from both residence life and facilities management,” Kostecky said of the case-by-case process of determining whether students should be charged for damages. Some examples of conditions that would prompt a fee include holes in walls and irreparable damages to sofas. 

In the case of 318 W Louther, “Res Life admitted to hiring private contractors in order to complete the work in a quick matter so the townhouse would be ready in order for alumni weekend,” said Davis.

Amanda George, director of residence life & housing, confirmed that “Facilities Management hires contractors when… facilities cannot do it because they do not have the capacity, whether it’s material supplies or primarily it’s time. They don’t have enough time to focus on getting the campus turned over so quickly…”

Davis said that he and his housemates requested an invoice from the contractor to ensure that they were being charged correctly, but “we never received an invoice nor the name of the private contractor.”

According to George, “They [Facilities] just give us [Residence Life] the break down, so we share what information we have [with the students] and then that’s all we have.”

However, Kostecky said “We do send out copies of contractor invoices.  However, we remove the name of the contractor.  This is exactly what we did with the townhouses so they [the students] did get a copy of the bill.”

Ellie Cosby ’19, Jane Dudzinsky ’19 and their apartment-mates also had complications communicating with Residence Life last semester. The four women lived at 27 West High Street last semester. Upon move-in “we were told to not worry about filling out the room inventory sheet, because our housing tab did not have us listed at the apartment,” said Cosby. One of Cosby’s apartment-mates was told to email Residence Life about any problems with the apartment since they were unable to access their room inventory form online, which she did, according to Cosby.

The apartment mates received an email individually billing them each $25 for chipped paint on the floor of their hallway, although Cosby said “we left our apartment in the same condition [we found it] upon arrival.”

George said that, “through the appeal process, if somebody had said they had emailed us we looked that [email] up and if it was true [that the student had emailed Residence Life about damages] we removed the damage [fee].”

When asked if they tried to appeal the fees, Dudzinsky said they did not because of their own human error.