Gessner residents battle water problems

Some Baker University students are counting their blessings and hoping that no other issues arise in Gessner Hall for the rest of the year.

This year, Gessner, the all-men dorm on the northeast side of campus, has had multiple issues that have left some students wondering what could come next.

Resident Assistant Parker Bryant, who has lived in the dorms since his freshman year, has never known Gessner to have as many problems as it has had this year. He said he almost feels like the building is falling apart with the boiler problem, a water leak and an increasing amount of mold in the showers.

“With being a residents assistant, it was my job to help cease any complaints and make sure the students get the help they need if they experienced one of the consequences from these problems,” Bryant said. “Personally, though, I have never seen Gessner have so many problems before.”

Associate Dean of Students Teresa Clounch said each of the problems have been addressed.

The boiler has been replaced with a new valve and the leak from a water pipe is being looked into as far as what exactly caused the seepage of water, but it has been fixed for the time being.

“We told the students to call their residence assistants, their area coordinator or call me when they have a problem to communicate what exactly is going on,” Clounch said.

Freshman Andrew Heim was one of the students who had to take a few cold showers while the boiler was being fixed.

“The worst problem we had was when the line broke and we didn’t have water at all,” Heim said. “I just tried to deal with the problem without complaining too much because I knew the faculty and maintenance were trying to take care of the problems occurring.”

Clounch said that throughout all the problems, the one positive was how helpful the students were.

“The students understood we were trying to figure out what was going on and they knew with constant communication that the physical plant, along with an outside heating and cooling company, was coming to fix the problem,” Clounch said.

To ease any troubled feelings caused by the maintenance problems, the residence life hall staff of Gessner, along with Kayla Smith, area coordinator for residence life, put on a pizza party for the students living in the hall.

“The pizza party was kind of like a reward to the students for being patient throughout all the troubles,” Bryant said.