Macye Farrar, News Editor
Johnson Hall’s weathered stone exterior still looks the same as last semester. The barren trees surrounding the building still bend around it. But the nearly 100 year old dorm has undergone extensive renovations since its closure in late September of last year.
The new residents in Johnson Hall have noticed significant improvements after the renovations. “It even smelled new when I walked in and it was very clean,” Hallie Revell (C ‘28) said. “It’s all very beige.”
Anne Catherine Grimes (C ‘27) lived in Johnson Hall last year and returned to Johnson in January after a semester of study abroad. “My mom when she moved me in was like, ‘This is amazing. This looks so much cleaner than it did last year,’” Grimes said. “It’s just a lot lighter and less disgusting.”
Over the second half of the 2024 Advent semester, the University brought in remediation specialists who spent several weeks cleaning the dorm. University workers then spent months renovating the dorm to make it ready for students this semester. Facilities Management Director Melissa Burnette described the renovations: the carpet was replaced with luxury vinyl plank flooring, the wallpaper was removed, and new ceiling tile was installed.
Parker W. Oliver, the University’s Associate Vice President for Marketing and Communications, told The Sewanee Purple that “every air-conditioning unit was serviced by a manufacturer’s certified contractor. Once that work was completed new furniture was moved-in, and the building was thoroughly cleaned by a professional cleaning company with a disinfectant designed to kill mold and mildew.” The dorm’s air quality was then retested by Marion Environmental, Inc., to ensure that the mold was completely remediated.
Facilities Management’s Assistant Vice President for Facilities Management Robert Benton said Johnson’s issues were complex. “It’s very, very difficult to detect [mold] here because of the amount of moisture here,” he said. “Johnson Hall was a little more difficult because it has newer VAV [variable air volume] systems where every room has its own system. So that generation of technology was a little harder to report back systems. Since then what we did in that building was we added four moisture sensors throughout the building.”
Facilities management also has a total of 103 employees to care for more than 270 structures totaling 1,885,204 square feet, as well as more than 450 acres of Sewanee’s Domain. “We only have four that are on the HVAC [air conditioning] department,” he said. “Two of those are mechanics and two of those are controls specialists.”
The humidity of the Domain’s environment has also contributed to the increase for potential mold growth. Benton said, “The type of stone that we have here is very porous, which sucks in the moisture. So between the amount of rain we have and the stone it makes it very difficult to keep all the moisture out of buildings.” The older buildings like Johnson Hall– which was built in 1926– were not built to accommodate the new technology such as air conditioning.
The University has also implemented changes for their policies for reporting, detecting, and remediating mold. That includes a new web page for mold reports.
“The University is committed to providing a safe and healthy environment for students, faculty, staff, and visitors. This includes identifying and addressing conditions within University facilities that are conducive to mold growth,” the web page introduction states. “Sewanee has an extremely humid climate and experiences high amounts of rainfall. Molds are part of the natural environment and can be found everywhere—indoors and outdoors. The EPA reports that “there is no practical way to eliminate all mold and mold spores in the indoor environment,” but residents and employees can take proactive measures to help maintain a healthy living and learning environment on campus.”
The new mold page includes a detailed mold management plan, approved in December 2024, that outlines University policies for detecting, reporting, and addressing mold issues.
Benton said the website was designed “so it’ll be easier for all the information to be together now. Our communications office created that website so that anyone who has a question or a concern can go to that website and find all that information in one place.”
Late last semester, the University announced that it would offer compensation for Johnson students’ documented medical expenses as well as documented costs of parents’ travel if they had to come to Sewanee to help their students move to other dorms.
At least one student and her parents want more from the University. A Johnson student’s family has contacted an Austin, Texas law firm specializing in mold litigation. The student, who is not at Sewanee this semester, declined to be interviewed. The Texas firm has posted a page on its website seeking Sewanee students and parents interested in making claims.
Mold issues have been a recurring issue at many colleges and universities around the country, including recent infestations that forced students to be moved from dorms at the University of Tennessee and Indiana University. Some students there have filed lawsuits alleging damages from mold, including at Ohio State University. A lawsuit was reportedly filed against Ohio State laws month, and the Texas law firm that has a Sewanee mold page has posted a similar page about that University’s mold issues.