TU adding air-conditioning to dorms; Prettyman, Scarborough Halls to be renovated
By Sophia Bates, Assistant News Editor, and Mary-Ellen Davis, News Editor
Photo by Bailey Hendricks/ The Towerlight
As students get ready to leave for the summer, Towson University is preparing to renovate Prettyman and Scarborough Residence Halls.
According to Towson’s associate vice president of communications and media Sean Welsh, the changes will include the addition of air-conditioning and updated communal bathrooms.
“Work will begin once students move out for the summer to renovate bathrooms and install air conditioning in Prettyman and Scarborough Halls,” Welsh said. “The scope of the work will take the summer.”
Located along Newell Avenue, Prettyman, built in 1957, and Scarborough, built in 1964, house about 160 students and are composed of mostly double occupancy rooms. The residence halls are designed to accommodate incoming first-year students and underclassmen.
The buildings’ amenities include a kitchen and study area on each floor, a recreation room, and a laundry room. They also have community bathrooms on each floor and are heated.
Junior Alexa Biddle lived in Scarborough Hall during her freshman year. She is hopeful that the renovated bathrooms will be better than the ones currently in the buildings.
Some of her wishes include access to soap, paper towels, and regular cleanings.
“When it comes to the bathrooms, the University didn’t provide soap and didn’t provide paper towels because apparently the people who had come before use would abuse them,” Biddle said. “But, that was the only reasoning that they gave us.”
She said that the lack of air conditioning is not a big deal to her because of the $250 discount she got each semester to live in the hall, but that she is surprised they decided to add it to the building this year.
“I guess it’s just funny that they would be doing renovations now because when I lived there last year, the RA said that they were supposed to do renovations the year before,” Biddle said.
Junior Ozeyla Awundaga, however, said that she felt she enjoyed her dorms more when she lived in Douglass and Barton Houses than her friends did in Prettyman and Scarborough because she had air conditioning.
“Most of the times they would want to come over more towards West Village because West Village is newer and it is nicer,” Awundaga said. “So obviously, if you aren’t in a more modern dorm or area, you don’t really want to be there as much and I know the experiences that they had there were more challenging.”
West Village resident Megan Ray also said that students would feel more comfortable in a building with air conditioning.
“It was a good experience to live somewhere where you can control the temperature where you live,” Ray said.
Awundaga feels that students living on campus should have easy access to air conditioning in all dorms.
“I definitely think that Prettyman and Scarborough should have A.C.,” Awundaga said. “A.C. is something that most modern buildings have. I mean obviously those buildings are pretty old and they should be updated because students are paying money to go to school here, they should be at least able to have cool air.”
