An essential part of the full college experience is living on campus, but a challenge of campus living is that students have to create an environment in which they can study, live with one another and rest after long days managing academics and other activities.
Community Advisors (CAs) and Community Directors (CDs) work to make living environments comfortable. Each week, CDs send building updates for residents, but a common theme is keeping areas clean. Kitchens, laundry rooms, bathrooms and other communal areas are often a target of these emails.
Brian Stutz, Director of Residential Life and Education, explains how students should approach keeping these spaces clean. “I hope students would want to leave the space better than they found it. If it is a very big mess, I would hope they report it to the CD…so our cleaning company can take care of it,” Stutz said.
Students are also encouraged to report any structural or property damage they find in their rooms; however, some students have reported that though maintenance was able to fix things in their room, they weren’t warned about this process happening
Brian Flesner, Director of Facilities Operations & Construction Projects, explained maintenance follows a process: “First, knock on the door and announce that it is Facilities. Perform this a couple of times to give students time to get to the door. If no response, open the door slightly and announce again… [then] if the student answers, let them know why we are there and ask if it’s ok to come in and complete the work order. If the answer is no, we will typically ask for a good time to come back, and then we will return. If the answer is yes, then we will enter the room and complete the work order. If no student is present when we arrive to perform the work order, we should leave a door hanger on the door alerting the student when they return that we have been there and accessed the room. It will have a date and time on the door hanger for reference.”
“I have reiterated with our team that if a work order involves moving personal belongings to complete the work order, they should stop and make a request via Res Life to have those items moved before they can come back and complete the work order. We hope that when a work order is submitted for a particular issue in a room, that the individual requesting the work order will make sure that there is proper access to the issue so we can complete the work in a timely manner,” Flesner said.
Freshmen Ximena Ortega Soto and Ashylnn Usthal, living as roommates in Sheldon, shared that their experience of residence life has been positive. Ortega Soto also shared that there was an ant infestation in her room earlier in the semester. “The ants were pretty bad that my roommate [Usthal] had to throw away her laundry basket. I was pretty scared to sleep at night,” Ortega Soto said.
Both were able to contact their CA and Residence Life, which were quick to respond. “Since there was already an ant problem, our room got added to the list for the exterminator visit,” Ortega Soto said. The exterminator resolved this issue.
Though the buildings are old, Smith, Sheldon, and Frees were renovated between 2009 and 2011. The next renovation is for Hansen Leadership Hall in 2030, but this could happen earlier or later. “We are, however, working through our capital planning and have identified the need to replace the furniture in Frees, Smith and Sheldon… We have not assigned an actual year to each of these just yet, but that is something that will be coming up in the future…Mechanical upgrades and repairs typically take place on an “as needed” basis, but are also part of our capital planning efforts,” Flesner said.
Students can keep up their due diligence in many ways, such as washing dishes, picking up laundry, rinsing the sink and double-checking that the space is clean after using it, which keeps resident halls running smoothly for everyone. Students with concerns about living environments are encouraged to communicate with their CDs and can call CAs and the facilities duty phone at (402) 826-0060 for emergencies such as flooding.
