New College pushes upperclassmen to dorms with mold issues amid influx of student-athletes
New College of Florida is shifting returning students into housing in buildings with mold problems identified by an outside consultant to make way for student-athletes and other incoming freshmen who are part of a conservative transformation of the school launched by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Weeks before the start of the fall semester, the college emailed returning students Tuesday to tell them their housing assignments had been changed at the last minute to accommodate an influx of student-athletes and freshmen. The new cohort would live in the apartment-style Dort and Goldstein buildings — which have historically housed upperclassmen — while returning students would be moved to other, shared-space dorms, such as the older I. M. Pei designed buildings.
Pei dorms, however, were considered virtually uninhabitable due to mold as of early this summer. Although New College housed students in the Pei dorms last semester, a May report commissioned by the school and obtained by the Herald-Tribune concluded that the Pei dorms "should not be occupied in their current condition" due to a systematic mold issue that would require a fiscal investment to repair.
Mold can cause symptoms such as stuffy nose, sore throat, coughing or wheezing, burning eyes, or skin rash, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People with asthma or who are allergic to mold could have more severe reactions, and immunocompromised people could get lung infections from mold.
The college's email to students mentioned ongoing renovations, but it was unclear if those included repairing mold damage and the underlying building issues causing mold.
Students had until July 14 to cancel their housing agreements with no penalty, a deadline only three days after the email was sent.
When asked for comment, New College responded with an email emphasizing that it was working to accommodate the more than 100 student-athletes as part of an "all-time record incoming class."
The addition of collegiate athletics, and the subsequent recruitment of student-athletes, was part of Interim President Richard Corcoran's vision to increase enrollment at New College, which had historically only had club athletics run by students.
Corcoran hired an athletic director and baseball coach, and launched the department in March. The college has since added several other sports, hiring coaches for men's and women's basketball, soccer and softball. New College had applied for membership with the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics as of Saturday.
Nathan March, a New College spokesperson, later sent the Herald-Tribune another statement in reference to mold in buildings, stating that the college had taken all mold-affected rooms in Pei dorms offline for students. He said the remaining rooms in Pei were undergoing renovations.
March also said that the college had not undergone a mold assessment in about four years, and commissioning one was prioritized by Corcoran early in his tenure.
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For many upperclassmen working on thesis projects, living in an apartment-style dorm is preferable because of the private living and study spaces each student receives.
The idea of living in shared-space Pei dorms again has prompted some students to consider off-campus living options, or even transferring to another college. For many, living off-campus is financially impossible because of the cost of rent in the Sarasota-Manatee area.
On-campus housing costs between $3,000 and $5,000 per semester, a student housing employee told the Herald-Tribune.
The estimated median monthly rent in Sarasota for a one-bedroom apartment is $1,500, and since March 2020, rents have increased by 43.5% in the North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton metro area, the sixth-largest increase in the country, according to apartmentlist.com data.
Zoe Fountain, a 20-year-old psychology and gender studies student involved in student government, said giving student-athletes the nicer apartment-style dorms is indicative of the school's new DeSantis-appointed leadership trying to shape a new student body while neglecting the needs of current students.
Earlier in the year, the college fired an LGBTQ librarian and denied tenure to five faculty members.
"To all of us (students), that just sounds like they're trying to drive us out," she said.
In addition to being given priority in housing assignments, student-athletes have been given preferential treatment in admissions and promised $1,400 laptops if they enrolled, a New College admissions official told the Herald-Tribune.
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As the college seeks rapid renovations of different residential buildings, the treatment of the current student body is "dehumanizing," Fountain said. Current summer residents have dealt with construction crews and dust.
"We are being treated as inconveniences that they need to move around," she said.
Fountain said that the housing situation, coupled with other actions by the administration, have alienated her from New College. She said she plans to take a gap semester this fall to find another college destination.
"The rug is being pulled out from under you, and all of us are just very desperately wanting to go back to the way things are and realizing that that's not possible for us anymore," Fountain said.
Megan Nigro, a 19-year-old zoology fourth-year student, was set to live in the Dort building with three other students this fall. Now, she's likely going to live in Pei dorms, where she lived last year.
One of the biggest draws for the Dort and Goldstein dorms is the kitchens in each unit, something Nigro said she was excited to use because of the limited food options on campus. She said she's exploring off-campus living options. However, Nigro said she pays for housing through scholarships at the school, so being able to afford an apartment off-campus would be difficult.
Some students won't be given an on-campus housing opportunity at all. Andy Trinh, a 20-year-old computer science third-year, said they were supposed to live in the Palmer B dorm, but they received an email saying the dorm had been taken offline. Corcoran had previously received approval from the Board of Trustees to begin the process of demolishing the building, despite not having obtained permits to do so.
In the meeting, Corcoran said displaced students could be moved to a nearby hotel or to USF's Sarasota-Manatee campus.
"I don't have a car. I don't know how to get to campus from there unless I take the bus, but it's not something I can do for like every single meal," Trinh said. "It's not completely feasible unless they have like a shuttle or something running."
Follow Herald-Tribune Education Reporter Steven Walker on Twitter at @swalker_7. He can be reached at sbwalker@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: New College pushes returning students into dorms with mold problems
