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Physical Plant News
This article is from the EMU News Archive. Current EMU new is available at www.emu.edu/news
<i>Summertime Campus Makeovers</i>
By Heather Bowser, Daily News-Record
Lovely ladies aren’t the only ones to profusely primp, polish and pretty up themselves during the summertime.
Actually, some of the area’s sunny season beauty queens aren’t even people — they’re college campuses.
And boy, do they get dolled up.
For three months, college campus beauty gangs (aka maintenance crews) remodel, repair and redecorate the college buildings and grounds.
And the building beauticians hustle, because the mammoth makeovers and facility face-lifts are only possible, they say, while students are gone and out of the way.
"Summer tends to be a little more stressful because we need to finish all these projects during limited windows of time," said Eldon Kurtz, Eastern Mennonite University’s physical plant director. "We really push ourselves."
So, hurry, hurry beauty gangs. Your late August houseguests will be back before you know it.
Makeovers Begin
This season’s scheduled makeovers are typical of summertime primping, workers say.
James Madison University plans to complete a brick pedestrian walkway on the Quad and replace several lampposts with more efficient ones.
"It’s definitely not the kind of thing you can do when the kids are here," said JMU spokesman Andy Perrine.
EMU will change the security gating on the snack shop, expand the student-operated coffee bar and replace the shingles on the campus center building.
Down the road, Bridgewater College’s model-perfect makeovers include replacing piping and upgrading the student cafeteria with new furniture, flooring and seating.
Meanwhile, Blue Ridge Community College beauticians say boiler maintenance is at the top of their list for summer work.
And all the local schools, except BRCC, will perform, or already performed, multi-million-dollar cosmetic surgery on an athletic field.
Tougher Every Year
Primping, maintenance workers say, is tougher these days because campuses are increasingly busy.
"We no longer have the luxury of having three months totally free to do what we need to do," said Kurtz. "For instance, we have 700 beds that we need to clean out and sometimes, all that has to happen within six hours."
About 10,000 people will visit the campus for camps and conferences, EMU officials say.
BRCC will host about 1,000 school-age children for the "learning can be fun" program while JMU expects 14,000 visitors during the summer months.
The result?
Campuses hire extra summer help to complete routine polishing, painting and planting.
"How would you like to deep clean about half a million square feet of building during the three months of the summer?" Kurtz asked. "That’s [about] 250 nice-sized, four-bedroom houses."
Although the pretty-up schedules are tighter and campuses are fuller, building beauticians say it’s all worth it knowing that students love the grounds.
"It’s not easy to do projects at any higher-education facility during the school year," said Teshome Molalenge, a Bridgewater administrator who oversees the budget and support services, "because you just don’t ever want to inconvenience students.
"But we love our job."
