We Got Sick — Was Our College to Blame?

Yahoo

23-05-2025

Portions of this article rely on accounts, reporting, and materials that could not be independently corroborated.
I turned 32 recently, and spent much of my birthday thinking about Ida Peterson Hardon, a fellow Roanoke College alum who died of leukemia on May 13, 2024. She was 33. I didn't set out to become a cancer activist. Honestly, I just wanted someone to listen to my story.
When I was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma in 2019 at the age of 25, I believed the fight would be clinical, personal, and ultimately behind me once treatment ended. I'd go through chemo, recover, and get back to my life — a life that had begun in earnest on the red-brick campus of Roanoke College, where I studied from 2011 to 2015.
But my diagnosis didn't feel like a fluke: I'd seen an Instagram post about another Roanoke girl in treatment. Another friend from my sorority pledge class. Then a group chat lit up with news of Ida Peterson Hardon, one more alum who was sick. I felt a sense of déjà vu: These students were diagnosed far too young with a disease that was supposed to come much later — if ever.
Faculty members from the school's English department, who worked in a building called Miller Hall, had reportedly fallen ill. (Later, a May 2025 article published in AirMail would state that at least eight Roanoke professors were diagnosed with cancer — five of whom fought breast cancer.) Alumni were reportedly diagnosed within years of graduation, shattering entire friend groups before the age of 35.
For years, those cases were discussed only in whispers. Then a reporter learned that the college had conducted environmental testing on campus buildings in 2023 — after professor Mary Crockett Hill's 2023 stage IV colon cancer diagnosis — but kept the results hidden until the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) got involved. (OSHA reportedly received a complaint by an anonymous faculty member in 2024, about the lack of transparency regarding the testing.)
But none of the test results were shared with students or faculty — until whistleblowers and journalists forced the truth into the open.
I never intended to become an overnight 'TikTok sensation.' In the fall of 2023, I recorded a video in which I talked about my college — and all the young alums being diagnosed with cancer. I ended up with 1.5M views.
Journalist Clara Molot saw my video and reached out; I began working with her in fall 2023. Initially, I finally felt a sense of relief. Someone was willing not just to listen — but to really investigate. She wanted to talk to everyone connected to what felt more and more like a crisis: the disturbing number of cancers linked to Roanoke College.
In May 2024, Molot published part one of her investigation, 'Roanoke's Requiem.' I read it with my stomach in knots. Friends, faculty, buildings I knew by heart — all laid bare in black and white. I recognized that specific ache: the gut-punch realization that something you once loved might have hurt you.
After the first article ran, I wrote to the college in September 2024, and got more than 220 students to co-sign that letter. It was addressed to Roanoke President Frank Shushok, urging the school to complete the environmental testing it had promised to conduct (particularly since students had already moved in for the academic year in August). We weren't demanding much — just the truth and test results. Instead, we got handpicked summaries and concealed reports. (The results Roanoke did release, Molot reported, were only available behind a password-protected site — accessible only to current students and faculty.)
That response — the absence of transparency, and the lack of urgency or even basic concern — appalled me. Because here's what I know now, and what I can never un-know: Too many of us got sick. Too many of us have died. Too many of us can relapse. And those in power are still treating it like a coincidence. But we knew it wasn't.
In 2024, the environmental testing company the school had hired to investigate, Engineering Consulting Services (ECS), finally released a portion of its test results. Maybe now we'd finally get answers.
Instead, Molot obtained the details of ECS's testing, which revealed that it had skipped the most basic and essential step: indoor air testing for volatile organic compounds. (The report isn't available publicly, but was reviewed for Molot's piece.) That's like seeing smoke and deciding not to check for fire.
What ECS did test — sub-slab soil gas — showed industrial levels of carbon tetrachloride beneath the school's Bartlett Hall; perchloroethylene in a dormitory called Chalmers; and chloroform across multiple dorms, fraternity houses, and Miller Hall itself. All three chemicals are probable carcinogens, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC, part of the World Health Organization) and the US National Toxicology Program (NTP).
And still, according to the ECS report obtained by Molot, students weren't relocated. Parents weren't notified.
As Molot's findings rolled in, so did the spin: President Shushok told faculty that full reports wouldn't be released because people might 'misuse' them. Virginia Department of Health (VDH) officials joked — in emails obtained by Molot — with Roanoke's legal council about being thankful no reporters had brought it up. One wrote, 'Ugh — I was really hoping it had gone away.'
Molot, who'd begun investigating our story in fall 2023, was still digging — and the additional details she found resulted in a second piece on the case, published in May 2025.
In her reporting, Molot recounted that she uncovered 11 cases of breast cancer linked to Roanoke. Ten cases of thyroid. Nine of melanoma. Five of lymphoma. And then there were the rarer diseases — appendix, uterine, pancreatic cancers — the types that Columbia University's epidemiologist Mary Beth Terry told Molot were 'extremely rare' in people our age. One nurse at the cancer center in Roanoke allegedly asked a faculty member, 'What are they putting in the water at that school?'
Right now, we need answers.
Why were cancer-causing chemicals allowed to fester under our dorms?Why wasn't indoor air testing conducted?Why weren't students and parents told about the ECS test results?Why did it take OSHA's intervention to release the mold report?Why did VDH coordinate with Roanoke's legal counsel before testing results were even published?Why are young people still getting sick?
The VDH has continued to dodge responsibility, and Roanoke College issued a statement on May 11 declaring, 'After a year of comprehensive testing, we unequivocally deny that there is any scientific evidence that indicates that students who attend Roanoke are more likely to be diagnosed with cancer than students at any other institutions.' Together, they've ensured that we're left assembling a puzzle of grief with no support — and no acknowledgment that a pattern even exists.
I wish I could end this story by telling you that the dorms were evacuated, that students were placed in different dormitories than the ones that had been tested. But I can't. In the May 11 letter from President Shushok, he states that ECS 'did not recommend relocating the students' and that according to ECS, 'no further investigations appear to be warranted.'
What I can say is: We're still here. We are the survivors, the siblings, the sons and daughters of Roanoke, and we'll keep asking questions. We will keep telling the truth. Because truth is the only thing that might protect the next generation of students walking into those buildings.
We're not here to scare or shame Roanoke — we're trying to protect its residents. This is about the safety of current students, faculty, staff, and those yet to come. It's for alumni who haven't seen a doctor in years and deserve to know if they need to. What's baffling is that the administration seems unwilling to investigate further, even when their own health and safety could be at stake.
But first, we're asking Roanoke officials to start looking at the realities the members of their community, and the city of Salem, are facing.
That's where the answers are.
Before publishing this piece, KCM contacted Roanoke for comment; the college replied with this statement:
'Cancer is a horrible disease that no person should have to bear, and it is especially heartbreaking to us that some of our alumni and employees have been faced with a cancer diagnosis. Cancer is the second-leading cause of death in the U.S., and it has been well documented in the media and scientific journals that diagnoses among younger Americans are on the rise. When it comes to cancer, we fully understand the desire for answers; however, there is no evidence that the answer lies at Roanoke. We believe students who attend our institution are no more likely to be diagnosed with cancer than students who attend other colleges.
When Roanoke was made aware of these concerns in 2024, we reacted swiftly and with gravity, immediately embarking on a year-long battery of independent environmental tests. We took this step despite the Virginia Department of Health's statement that there is no evidence of a cancer cluster at Roanoke College. During the testing process, we published seven updates on the college website to keep the community informed. Any concerns identified through the testing were minor and were quickly remediated, and the overall findings revealed no ongoing, systemic concerns at Roanoke College. The article referenced in this op-ed contains inaccuracies and serious omissions. However, we are confident in both the safety of our campus and the integrity of our process, and we remain committed to ensuring that Roanoke College is a safe place to live, work and learn.'
Chloe Svolos Baldwin is a 32-year-old cancer survivor dedicated to improving the lives of fellow survivors through her work in healthcare. She lives in Boston with her husband, Luke, and loves cooking, reading, and taking long walks with Taylor Swift in her ears.
The post We Got Sick — Was Our College to Blame? appeared first on Katie Couric Media.