BOSTON (WHDH) - Some incoming students at Northeastern University are dealing with a last-minute change to their plans after the university announced it discovered major water damage inside a residence hall.
Some incoming freshmen were slated to move into White Hall next week. Now, those students have been reassigned to other campus locations.
“If that happened to me, I’d be pretty upset,” said area resident Ethan Spitalney.
“A lot of kids are international too, especially at our school, so pretty big shame that they have to deal with all this,” said Northeastern junior Neil Isaac.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Northeastern said officials found the water damage “impacting the structure of the interior and exterior brick walls of the building” as part of a planned building improvement project at White Hall.
“Structural engineering experts are currently evaluating the problem and we expect to have their report and recommendations within the next couple of weeks,” the spokesperson said. “At that point, we will determine the necessary repair work and the timeline to complete it.”
Students were notified of this change on Monday. On Tuesday, there was a sign taped to the front door of White Hall turning visitors without “approved access” away.
Northeastern University in its statement said it always has beds readily available in case of unexpected emergencies.
Those in the community, though, say a dorm disruption like this can have a major impact on students’ college experience.
“I know how important that is to be able to have everyone be together on campus and to be cohesive and that could definitely disrupt the community, especially for first years looking to meet new people,” Spitalney said.
Northeastern told impacted students it made an effort to keep roommate pairings together. In some cases, though, that could not be done.
Students on campus told 7NEWS this change impacted a few hundred freshmen who would have been living at White Hall.
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