If you’ve been on TikTok, watched TV or listened to a local Peoria radio station recently, you may have seen a recent ad from Bradley University featuring their brand new slogan: “Put Your Future Forward.”
It is hard to believe that “future forward” is the case when the newest dorm on campus was built in 1970. That’s over 50 years of opportunities to create something new that have seemingly not been capitalized on.
Reports of multiple issues with Bradley housing including mold, collapsing ceilings and buildings with insufficient accessibility have arisen recently. These problems are not things that should be brushed off.
There is no place on Bradley’s campus for mold that causes sneezing, itching and illness. Especially considering the effects of COVID-19 are still being felt, a million-dollar institution should not have a mold problem.
Unfortunately, infrastructure issues are common in dorm rooms on campus, with the main problems stemming from the ceiling.
Students have faced the issue of ceilings being low enough to the point that they can hit their head when they are up in their bunk. The popcorn ceiling that the majority of students have in their dorms has also been reported as flakey and dusting off at the lightest touch.
Further issues that have reappeared in student housing include ceilings falling down and creating holes. At times, even large chunks of the ceiling continuously fall into students’ rooms, which creates messes that the students are sometimes left to clean up.
Additionally, in some instances of students alerting the housing staff of the issue, their problems are not solved for weeks. This has left students in potentially unsafe conditions which they do not feel comfortable in.
In many of the reported situations, the people who came to investigate only did a surface clean, not addressing the source of the issue but rather only what was seen.
Students pay an average of $25,000 to go to Bradley, according to the U.S. Department of Education, and the outdated living situations with spotty remediation needs to change.
To start, Bradley needs to be proactive rather than reactive. If they’re able to point out the problems before they happen, which they have the resources to do, they can prevent a lot of these issues from repeatedly arising.
Half a century is a long time without change, and a lot has definitely changed from the 1970s to now. Building a new dorm, or at least renovating the current dorms, will make for a more welcoming environment and boost student enrollment.
With sweeping changes happening all across campus, it’s about time housing got the same treatment.