Every room in Oxford College’s Jolley Residential Center (JRC) Dickey Hall will be inspected this month after mold on the bottom floor warranted professional cleaning and forced students to move out of their rooms on Jan. 29, Assistant Vice President of University Communications Laura Diamond said. Diamond told The Emory Wheel that a “small leak in a water line,” which has since been fixed, caused the mold.
Sarah Sinhal (25Ox) and her roommate, who lived on the bottom floor of Dickey, reported feeling ill in the fall 2023 semester.
“I was breaking out in hives and having respiratory issues all of last semester, and I went to student health a bunch, but they could never figure out what was going on,” Sinhal said. “Over winter break, my parents told me to get an allergy test done, so we got a big allergy test and turns out I’m allergic to mold and fungus.”
At the start of this semester, Sinhal said her boyfriend pointed out a black spot in her closet, which she said she believes was the mold causing her symptoms. She alerted her resident assistant (RA) Sage Fernandez (24Ox), who then sent a maintenance request and told her residence life coordinator about the situation.
Sinhal said her roommate was uncomfortable staying in the room because of the mold and requested to move out, but noted that it took “two weeks” for the Office Residential Education & Services (RES) to address the issue from the time the mold was first discovered.
Fernandez said two other residents also moved out due to mold concerns at the same time as Sinhal.
Emory University’s Environmental Health and Safety Office (EHSO) ultimately inspected three rooms. Students in two of the rooms, including Sinhal, were then relocated, Diamond said.
RES Assistant Director Claudia Zanjanchian emailed four Dickey residents, including Sinhal and her roommate, on Jan. 29 that EHSO found a “potential water leak” in the rooms, so they were “being reassigned” to Elizer Hall for the remainder of the spring semester and had until Jan. 31 to move out. The email did not mention mold.
Fernandez said there have been instances of mold in other residence halls, adding that Oxford administration should take the situation “more seriously.”
Mollie Gross (25Ox), who previously lived in JRC before relocating to Fleming Hall, also noticed mold in her room’s vents this semester.
In an email to the Wheel, Gross wrote that she and her roommate were sick while living in the JRC room, often waking up “congested” and with “sore throats.” Gross added that RES did not specify what type of mold was in her room beyond noting that it was not black mold.
Ryan Stefko (25Ox) lives in Murdy Hall and noticed mold growing on his carpet in fall 2023, which he said “smelled really bad” and caused him to develop a sinus infection. Stefko said it took maintenance almost two weeks to fully clean the mold.
“I first contacted my RA to see if he had any advice and he basically kept bugging maintenance until they would come in and eventually get rid of it,” Stefko said. “It took multiple sessions of them cleaning at this to actually get rid of it, and what they eventually did was they replaced the carpet tiles that were covered.”
For Sinhal, living with mold and moving out has been “hectic” and “exhausting.”
“We had to walk to Elizer, get empty carts back and then do at least four rounds to move the stuff by ourselves,” Sinhal said.
Although the rooms were deep-cleaned, Diamond wrote that the students who were instructed to move out on Jan. 29 chose to not move back into JRC this semester. Fernandez said that she will miss the residents who had to move out.
“They were sad because we created a pretty tight community within our hall,” Fernandez said. “All the girls on my hall … are best friends with each other, but I also think they were relieved that they weren’t going to be sick anymore.”
The recent mold outbreak in JRC has prompted students like Sinhal to raise concerns about perceived inequalities in Oxford dorms. Built in 1955, JRC is the oldest dorm on campus. The newer dorms such as Elizer, Murdy and Fleming were not built until the 2000s.
“The salt on the wound for a lot of people in JRC who are also going through and have been through stuff like this is that we’re paying thousands of dollars to be here, and we’re also paying the same amount as, say, Fleming or Elizer but the amenities we’re getting are significantly not on the same level,” Sinhal said.
News Editor Spencer Friedland (26C) contributed reporting.
Correction (2/22/2024 at 12:01pm): A previous version of this article stated that students were unable to move back into the JRC this semester, when in fact they chose not to.
