Dining hall, maintenance employees keep campus functioning

By the time students walk down to breakfast at 7 a.m., the dining hall staff has already been at work for hours. They begin the day by cleaning, turning on and flushing equipment. Later, but still before the hall opens to students, more staff members come in to prepare the omelet bar and unload the food orders.

“Everything has to be stocked and ready to go for each lunch period… You have to make sure you keep up with everything while preparing for the next meal,” said Lisa Newman, a dining hall staff member.

By Daniella Choynowski,

Staff Writer

By the time students walk down to breakfast at 7 a.m., the dining hall staff has already been at work for hours. They begin the day by cleaning, turning on and flushing equipment. Later, but still before the hall opens to students, more staff members come in to prepare the omelet bar and unload the food orders.

“Everything has to be stocked and ready to go for each lunch period… You have to make sure you keep up with everything while preparing for the next meal,” said Lisa Newman, a dining hall staff member.

Despite the routine, Newman said that her job is hardly boring. “Everything can be interesting, between the people you work with to the students that come through,” she said.

Unlike dining services, the maintenance and custodial departments do not have a routine. “It’s unpredictable. One day it’s one thing, one day it’s another,” said Bill Vokes, the manager of maintenance and grounds.

Jobs average from changing a light bulb to repairing a roof leak or garbage disposal. During the winter, the maintenance department attempts to keep the campus roads snow-free and accessible 24 hours a day.

Custodial jobs range from cleaning staff offices and dorm rooms to the hallways and parlor set-ups.

“It varies. We do additional helpdesk work for students on campus, like bed removal or helping them carry boxes to their vehicles…it’s a continuous variation,” said Jackie Tickle of custodial services.

Tickle and the custodial department start the day by cleaning every building on campus before moving on to student dorms. Dormitory cleaning does not begin until 9:15 a.m. because of privacy for the students.

Sometimes there is an emergency that requires the merging of the two departments.

“If Bill [Vokes] has an emergency in the rest room area, or a flood somewhere, we unite and work together as a team to complete the job,” said Tickle.

Vokes took a large stack of papers from behind his desk. The papers consisted of over 2,000 helpdesk maintenance requests, from this term [two semesters] alone. The stack does not include the many jobs that do not come through the helpdesk. Many requests come from emails or word of mouth.

Tickle said, “As you can see, we can never say what our normal job will be…We can never have a same routine. It’s always something new each day.”

Vokes and Tickle said that they get some unusual jobs. Two weeks ago, one of the sinks in Canevin fell off the wall and flooded into rooms on first and second Lowe. Around the same time, an air vent blew off 5th admin.

“Compared to the other terms, I feel much better on vandalism…it’s not as bad as it was,” said Vokes.
No matter what situation the custodial and maintenance departments run into, their jobs are always completed before they leave campus.

“They make sure to stay additional time to maintain what they left off and it’s completed,” said Tickle. “I feel good knowing when I leave here that there was not an area that was neglected. That makes me feel like it’s worth 100 percent.”