The Optimist

Issue date: 8/31/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Katie Gager Troy Shockley's nearly two-year-old daughter sweeps up a cricket Wednesday as a daily ritual.

The Shockley family returned from their summer vacation to find a hoard of crickets filling the bathroom shower and covering the kitchen floor of their apartment in Sherrod Hall.

The crickets slipped through the holes and cracks in the walls and doors of their apartment while the Shockleys were gone, and Troy Shockley, an ACU alumnus, had no choice but to clean out the apartment himself. He knew from experience if he called the Residential Life Education and Housing Office nothing would get done.

"I had to get in there with a brush and bleach, and I told [my wife] to not even look because she would get sick," Shockley said. "We're just out here by ourselves."

The apartment complex that houses about two dozen ACU students and their families is plagued with leaks, broken lights, broken doors, a lack of laundry facilities and, residents say, a lack of security. All the while the rent has continued to go up and the list of needed repairs and services grows longer.

As of Thursday, John Delony, newly appointed director of ResLife, said he was presenting a proposal to Dr. Royce Money, president of the university, to end Sherrod as a residential facility. Delony said residents don't need to worry, if the action is approved, it will not be immediate.

"What people need to know is that Sherrod is on ResLife's radar," said Delony, newly appointed director of ResLife. Delony, who has only been director of ResLife for three weeks said Sherrod has moved up on the ResLife priority list, and the university will take action, pending approval by the president.

"It would be irresponsible for me not to take an active role in this," Delony said. He added that he planned to meet with residents to see what the problems are at Sherrod.

The residents' rent for 2007 was raised to $595 from $570 last fall, and the Shockleys and other residents wonder why. Little to no repairs or improvements have been made to the facility, and the Sherrod on-site director, the residents only connection to the university at Sherrod, has not been replaced since leaving
in the middle of the summer.

"One of the biggest things is there is no on-site director," said Seth Shaver, graduate student in the College of Biblical Studies from Tyler. "If we run out of laundry cards, we have no one to go to; we have to go all the way to the ResLife office on campus." Delony said plans are in the works to replace

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