Leah Gershman, Special to The Denisonian
Dirty bathrooms, mold, unsanitary common room spaces and overflowing trash are seeming to take rise this year within residence halls. As a student who lives in Shorney Hall, I feel as though the cleanliness of the dorms on campus should really be taken seriously. Students, in my opinion, deserve a nice and hygienic environment to come back to after a long day of classes.
Students spend a significant amount of time in their residence halls every day on campus. It is the place which students truly call “home” here at Denison, as that is where they sleep, can study, relax, spend time with friends and return after a stressful or long day. Knowing this, no one wants to come back to their hall smelling, having mud all over the floors, bugs in the bathroom, leaves in the hallway or even mold growing in the showers. We spend way too much time in our residence halls for them to not be sanitary.
Furthermore, students here at Denison pay a substantial amount of money for housing. If we are paying this much to live on campus, we deserve the most basic forms of cleanliness within our residence halls. The school’s responsibility is to provide healthy and safe, and also sanitary, living conditions so that students can feel comfortable on campus. I believe that Denison needs to up their standards in regards to what a clean hall should look like.
As someone who values a sanitary environment, seeing toilet paper on the floors of the bathroom, constant piles of hair inside of the showers, mold in the hall, kitchens full of grease and laundry rooms with clothes just dumped on the floor, I can’t help but think that maintaining a clean residence hall is a shared responsibility between both students and the school. Students need to do their part by picking up after themselves while the school should provide more in-depth weekly maintenance to ensure proper sanitation.
In order to consistently keep our residence halls healthy and hygienic, students should prioritize picking up after themselves, properly throwing their trash away, cleaning up kitchens after using the space, avoiding leaving clothes in the laundry room and more. Most importantly, we need to remind ourselves that we share this environment with many other people. Being aware of our living conditions and recognizing that we have a shared responsibility for maintaining a clean environment would be key to creating a more comfortable living experience for everyone.
In regards to steps Denison should take to improve this problem, I feel as though the school should increase the frequency of cleaning for the bathrooms and common spaces. Regular inspections of the residence halls could also be a way for staff to inspect the conditions of each hall and determine whether the sanitation issues are mainly a student problem or a university problem. Denison and the student body need to collectively prioritize keeping our buildings clean to ensure a positive environment for all. This could also apply to any part of campus such as dining halls, classrooms or even the library. Keeping campus clean would also lead to less germs and sicknesses spreading as we start to head into the winter season later in the year.
Ultimately, faculty and students need to work together to better maintain the standards of cleanliness in any building on campus. However, residence halls should take priority, as they are where most students spend their time outside of` everyday responsibilities. A clean campus is a better campus.
Leah Gershman ‘29 is a psychology major from Katy, Texas.