For all the parents on the Quad for Commencement, you would probably be amazed to know that by 5 pm on Monday, a good bit of the Quad was cleaned up: chairs stacked into tall piles of 100 or 150 and then wrapped with cellophane to keep them together, video stations being dissembled, portable trashcans gone. Pretty much as soon as the vast majority of the crowd leaves, our Facilities team goes into high gear to begin breaking down the scene.
The tent is still up today, but largely because we’ve had bad weather. A lot of rain yesterday, and the threat of it today, though it seems sunny now. Give us a couple more days and the only trace of Commencement will be the worn out paths in the grass where everyone walked. And even that can be remedied with a lot of grass seed and some TLC from our expert landscapers.
Couple other facilities-related observations. The week after Commencement is the annual ‘week without hot water’ while they do maintenance to steam pipes. We have running water, just none of it hot. It’s enough to shut down the campus Starbucks, which is troublesome to those who have developed a hearty dependence on their early morning coffee. I can’t say enough about the staff who work at our Starbucks. If you are at all a regular, they remember you, your drink order, and they are always smiling. It’s a wonderful place to go for that morning cup of joe.
