Community Council Update

On Monday April 14, Community Council met with Assistant Director of Support Services Melissa Beckwith to discuss upcoming student move-out and to come up with ways to improve the cleanout process.

Beckwith started last week’s meeting by pointing out the problems that exist with the cleanout process.

“We have a really great cleanout process on the facilities end,” Beckwith said.  “When I say it is great I mean we are meeting our goal of sending as little to the landfill as possible.”

“The trouble is that the process by which we do that is very inefficient. We have some systems set up to help divert waste and I think some of the student body use these systems and it work pretty well, but the majority [do not],” she continued.

The problem has to do with the sheer amount of things that students throw out said Horticulturist Tim Parsons.

“When students start to move out, they throw everything away all at once,” Parsons said. “For seniors who are about to move across the country, they get rid of almost everything. So what we call dorm cleanout is not our day-to-day recycling, it’s three or four times the stuff all in the space of two weeks.”

This creates tremendous work during campus cleanout for staff members from Facilities Services.

“We are taking staff from landscaping, electrical, plumbing, general services, custodial all areas within facility services to support this process, which leaves them short-staffed in their work,” Beckwith explained.

Finals week, however, is stressful for a lot of students and many have little time to pack, adding to the chaos that surrounds these few days.

“[During the last three years] I’ve had four or three finals during the week and I had to move out technically by noon the day after my finals are done,” Raj Anand ’14 said. “It has always been the worst week of my life. I have to find a place to store everything, if it’s not going to fit, it’s going to the trash.”

For staff, work does not stop even after students have left the campus, as they not only have to collect waste and prepare for commencement but also prepare rooms for reunion and then again for Language Schools.

“During what we call commencement-cleanout-reunion, Facilities have what we call restricted time off,” Beckwith explained. “That means staff cannot put in requests for time off because we need every single person here.”

Members of the Council suggested a variety of approaches to improve the process, ranging from yard sales to providing color-coded garbage bags. In this week’s meeting, Associate Dean of Students Doug Adams announced that a pilot yard sale was being planned.

“We got a subcommittee together to see which offices would be involved and to see what type of interest there was without going too big,” Adams said. “Within the next couple of days we should actually be able to announce how it’s going to work.”

Other ideas that came out of the meeting were also starting to be implemented.

“It was probably from my own personal point of view and from [the point of view of] Facilities the most productive Community Council meeting I’ve been in the three years I’ve been on it,” Parsons said. “Missy [Beckwith] got some really concrete ideas and she’s got a lot of things in motion. She really appreciates our help and speaking as a guy who works down there, I sure appreciate it too.”

The Council was adjourned after a discussion about the honor code.