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Independent Student Journalism Since 1914
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Union Board releases the 2022 Frolics Calendar of Events
Volume 120, Issue 16
March 30, 2022
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Davidson baseball off to a record-breaking start of the season
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Noah Landau ‘25 talks making his own guitar from scratch
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The Yowl invites you to celebrate #AllinforDavidson with a unique donation
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Home Repairs Continue At The Bungalows
Property Management Addresses and Redresses Resident Concerns
HUNTER CALLAWAY ‘22 (HE/HIM) POLITICS CO-EDITOR IAN MACEL ‘24 (HE/HIM) POLITICS CO-EDITOR
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anagement at The Bungalows has continued to make progress on inspections and repairs to the property since The Davidsonian first covered this story. As of March 29th, 2022, all thirty-two units have been inspected by Mecklenburg County. Documents provided by Davidson Housing Coalition (DHC) indicated that ten of the thirty-two units have had all violations corrected. The county inspector confirmed through follow-up visits. Kathy Stilwell, Executive Director of Mosaic Development Group, had this to say about the progress of repairs: “All repairs have been completed to the satisfaction of the County with the exception of any findings from the final three unit inspections that took place today, one window replacement that is on backorder [sic] and the stairs which are being replaced as noted above.” On March 25, 2022, management updated residents on the replacement of exterior stairs at The Bungalows in a letter to residents. According to the letter, Mecklenburg County has approved the plans for replacement stairs and issued building permits for each stairway. Management has engaged a contractor to carry out the replacements; the contractor estimates that, “it will take approximately 4-5 weeks for fabrication of the replacement stairs.” Once the stairs are completed, installment will begin piecemeal. Management anticipates completing the first replacement, “beginning the week of May 9, 2022, provided there are no unforeseen delays.” Each set of stairs should take around one week to install, so management estimates, “the project to be 100% completed by the end of June 2022.” The letter ends by underscoring the importance of “completing this work as expeditiously as possible” and promising that management will coordinate the repair
schedule with each affected resident. When asked about the update, one resident answered, “it’s exciting that that’s going to get done for the people who need those stairs.” Shelli Roberts noted that the new stairs will not just benefit residents but also, “onsite staff, postal workers, delivery people, contractors, and anyone else who climbs these stairs.” “My gratitude to all parties who pushed for this to happen, and hopefully this is a sign of more good things to come for Bungalows’ residents,” she said. Although some residents have complained that the county inspector missed certain problems in their units—like malfunctioning stovetops—other residents have emphasized the limited scope of minimum housing code inspections. “Some people have blinds that are broken, or carpet that needs replacement. Neither of those things fall under the inspections done by [the county inspector] Grady Penner,” noted one anonymous resident. Eugene Bradley, the Town of Davidson’s Housing and Equity Director, also brought up the minimum housing code’s targeted scope. “I say minimum housing code, that’s really, really dealing with life safety issues, if folks are safe in their units,” he said. The minimum housing code makes no reference to some of the issues that residents complain were left unaddressed by the county inspector, like faulty stove burners or cracked blinds. One code violation found in several units was the water heater’s proximity to the wall. A resident in one of these units shared, “the water heater wasn’t up to code or didn’t fit in there, so they had to make a special cut in the wall and they filled it all in with foam.” The minimum housing code inspections were effective in fixing smaller issues residents had in their units. The Bungalows resident and DHC Board Member Carol Robinson ‘80 stated, “it wasn’t anything that I noticed that was troubling me, but they took care of those things.” Direct and prompt communications— like the stairway update—have become more common since the change in staff last
Excel Property Management oversees The Bungalows, affordable housing in the Town of Davidson. Photo by Hunter Calloway ‘22 year. The new property manager, Michael, started last July while the new maintenance technician, George, started last October. As soon as George joined The Bungalows, according to one resident, “he had to hit the ground running.” In June 2021, after a meeting with residents where their complaints were heard, DHC and Mosaic updated The Bungalow’s Resident Grievance Protocol. The new protocol consists of a written request that is sent straight to Management, while also providing an opportunity to appeal beyond the property manager to the asset manager. Executive Director of DHC Gerald Wright stated of the updated protocol that “following the written procedure and addressing it to management, that’s where a resident has the protection of knowing that it’s being seen and heard by the right people.” Overall, residents are pleased by the new staff and their commitment to The Bungalows. When inspections found small problems in the units, “sometimes he [George] would do the repair that same day.” Discussing the new staff, one resident emphasized that, “they’ve really worked hard, both of them, to get this process done.” Beyond work on the
site itself, residents have also formed positive relationships with the new on-site employees. “I like who we got in here now, I think they’re really good people.” While the new maintenance technician has diligently performed repairs throughout the inspections, some residents believe that he does not have the funding to handle every maintenance request. According to one source, “there’s only so much Michael and George can do, because of budget constraints.” Another resident echoed that concern and said that, “he [George] would like to do more, and he’s willing to do more. But he—I think that he’s being held back from being able to have the funding to do what he needs to do.” On the other hand, Wright stated that cost is not a determining factor in whether a repair is done. “When the maintenance needs come up, whether it involves repair or replacement, you just complete the job…We don’t give anyone the responsibility of saying if it’s too much, you don’t fix it.” Wright continued to explain that the money used to handle repairs comes from rent payments. “The property itself generates a fund
Past and Future Intersect at Art Department Graduate Symposium ELLIE STEVENS ‘25 (SHE/HER) STAFF WRITER
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ast Tuesday, March 22nd, Davidson’s Art Department held a grant-funded symposium entitled “Art History 2060: Imagining Our Futures to Rethink our Pasts.” This event was a long time coming, as the art department’s initial symposium was canceled due to COVID-19. The symposium was funded by a program called the C3 New Scholar Series, which “introduces graduate students from underrepresented groups to liberal arts colleges,” according to their website’s program statement. Institutions seeking new perspectives for their curriculum are provided with a connection to a recent graduate or PhD candidate from a marginalized group. The connection between the C3 Scholar Series
and Davidson has been a long one. According to Davidson Associate Professor of Art Dr. John Corso-Esquivel, the intention of this relationship is “to introduce underrepresented graduate students to small liberal arts colleges in hopes that they might choose to teach at small colleges like Davidson.” Before COVID-19, the title of the symposium was “Expanding our Vision: New Approaches in Art History.” However, when rebooting the event, the focus was shifted to futurity, according to Dr. Corso-Esquivel. With the new title, which focuses on envisioning the future to dismantle the past, the department put out a revised call for papers, yielding proposals from around the world. The prompt for these papers asked scholars to “imagine the methods we will use in 40 years (2060 CE) to historicize art, architecture, and visual culture.” The
process of developing the symposium heavily involved Davidson students, as they aided in designing the graphic website materials, and intern Kaikai Wang ’24 guided the panelists through the day’s events. The symposium events were modeled after actual scholarly events. The schedule for the symposium began at 10 a.m. on Zoom, featuring four talks with topics ranging from non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to architectural history. The event shifted to in-person at the Visual Arts Center at 2 p.m., with speakers from institutions such as Columbia University and the University of Oregon. These talks centered around the future of art, particularly pertaining to digital art, and the globalization of art. Some of the panelists talked about artificial intelligence (AI), animal studies, and digital engagement with museums.
“We really wanted students to attend all events to get a sense of what a scholarly symposium is like,” Dr. Corso-Esquivel said. The event concluded with the keynote address at 5 p.m., which was delivered by Dr. Dan-el Padilla Peralta, Associate Professor of Classics at Princeton University. Dr. Padilla is a classicist and the subject of an article written in April 2021 featured in the New York Times entitled “He Wants to Save Classics From Whiteness. Can the Field Survive?” Dr. Corso-Esquivel stated this piece prompted him to propose Dr. Padilla as the keynote speaker. He said he believed Professor Padilla would “share his thoughts on a more inclusive classicism” which would in turn “open the discussion to Art History.” Dr. Corso-Esquivel sees a lot of connections between Art History and the Classics, with