Happy Holidays & To All A Good Night from the UD Campus!

Rodney basement "experiment" expanding

A plan this spring to change the appearance of the basements in the Rodney Commons' buildings has been successful and is now set to expand to the A/B and E/F basements. The new design includes additional lighting, an area carpet, new and different furniture, and the centerpiece is a new flat big screen TV. Most all of the work involved in transforming the areas is completed by our UD Housing Maintenance Staff, including all the electrical and carpentry work. Some furniture has been re-used by re-upholstering pieces through our Housing Upholstery Shop. Although the start in A/B includes just the initial framing of the new walls, the plan is to have everything complete by the beginning of the Spring Semester in early February 2010.

Dickinson kitchens back in play

Today I have a video blog on some changes that we are making in the Dickinson Commons areas in order to improve the appearence and functionality of the spaces. Dickinson is the only complex without public area kitchens, but by working with Kevin McSweeney, the UD Fire Marshall, we have come up with a plan to re-establish the kitchen areas and also upgrade the whole functionality of the Commons Lounges. Future plans include painting and new big screen TVs for the Commons Lounge areas.

Triple furniture done right

In support of the extended housing program, we try to provide the best possible furniture experience, given that we don't want to load up a traditional double room with too many pieces so that there is no room to function. Many years ago we started buying a better quality desk that was closer in style and functionality to the "permanent" desks that the other two residents would be using. In addition, we purchased third beds that could be adjusted up and down like the permanent ones to increase storage space. This week we received delivery of some additional new extended housing desks that will allow us to purge the oldest desks still in the pipeline. Although we haven't come close to the number in many years, we have enough extended housing furniture to set up 200 rooms if needed. This fall we started with a total of 112 rooms and are down to less than 70 now. At the end of the Fall Semester all those still in extended housing will be offered a new assignment.

Re-working Rodney Spaces

In the past two years we have tried to give the Rodney Complex some updates to its' "sixties" appearence by using paint and flooring to change the dated look of some of the spaces. This week the Rodney A/B Upstairs Commons was the focus, with new carpeting to complement paint and fabric bulletin boards that were added last year. This time the carpet was installed wall to wall to give the area more of a living room feel. In addition to the Commons Lounges, the brick in the tubeways was painted white to brighten up that area and take away from the institutional look of the basic brick. More efforts will be made in the future to address all the areas in Rodney that require an update. Hopefully students that lived in Rodney in past years will return and notice the positive changes.

A "Sit In" at Christiana East Tower

In the elevator lobby of the Christiana East Tower, an opportunity was found to create a small bench area where residents and guests could sit down and hang out while waiting for each other to come down and meet up. This suggestion made by Residence Life is being brought to life in the Housing Carpenter Shop as designed and being built by our staff. The new bench area will be upholstered when complete for a comfortable spot to relax in an area that was previously underutilized.

Follow-Up on "Get Out Green" Program

At closing this past spring I wrote briefly about a program developed by Residence Life to encourage students to leave their dorm room for the summer in a way that lessens the impact on the environment. The program was called, "Get Out Green." Facilities played a part in it by encouraging residents in Independence Hall to not throw their room carpets in the dumpster but to put them in two areas near the exits of the buildings that would be later collected and be recycled by our carpet installation contractor. This carpet pile from Independence West was trucked to Wilmington, for a total of 184 pieces of carpet in various sizes that did not get thrown away in a landfill. Although the program has started out small in just one complex, we hope to expand the program to all the complexes at some point in the future. It probably saved us at least one full dumpsters' worth of carpet that was sent to a factory to give the discarded pieces of carpet a new life.

In Honor of Campus Sustainability Day

Today is Campus Sustainability Day at UD and a time to highlight initiatives everyone is making across campus to manage our community in a way that minimizes impacts on the environment. One of those ways is to responsibly dispose of old mattresses from the Residence Hall system. A way that we do that is to partner with Ohio Mattress Recovery, a company that recycles old mattresses and diverts them from the traditional places they end up in like a landfill or worse. The photo this week shows a load of our old mattresses filling up a truck bound for recycling at the plant.

An Idea (Paint) Whose Time Has Come...

Recently students in Thomas McKean Hall asked if they could have a large dry erase board installed in their first floor lounge. Instead of just trying to purchase and install such a board, we decided to try a relatively new product dubbed "ideapaint." Similar to "blackboard" paint, ideapaint allows you to apply a paint product to any surface you wish and thus allows people to use a dry erase marker on it similar to a board. A big benefit is that you can control the size and shape of the writeable surface and you can apply it virtually anywhere. UD is going to try it at Thomas McKean and then go to other locations if it is popular.

Once a Hall Director Apartment...not always a Hall Director Apartment!

As part of the major renovation to the Russell Complex that occurred over a two year period, a new use was found for the Hall Director Apartment that was formerly located in the lobby of Russell D. In order to create alternative lounge space that was "taken over" by a newly designed mechanical room that was located in part of the previous Russell C Commons Lounge, the old Hall Director Apartment was completely gutted and a new entrance was created at the end of a hallway that joined it to Russell C. As a result, the lounge space actually resides in the previous footprint of Russell D, but is only accessible by residents living in Russell C. As the photo shows, the new space allows residents of Russell C to still have a nice comfortable room to watch TV, play the piano, of just hang out with ample seating. Part of the old Russell C Commons Lounge that was not needed for the mechanical space, is also available and has been set up as a quiet study space with individual study carrels.

A new day dawns for Ray Street TV watching

In addition to Rodney C/D, another spot that was identified for a big screen TV was the Ray Street C main lounge. When the Complex was first built and opened in 1991, the Ray C lounge had a TV perched atop a stand that could be moved around the lounge area. Although this was a solution that has worked OK since then, it was never the ideal scenario. This past summer, the data and electric lines needed to accomodate a new TV were moved from their previous location on the south wall of the lounge to a central location with more visible site lines. The new 46" TV was installed just after opening. Residence Life reports that it is already a big hit with the residents. The TV has an attached DVD player as in the basement of Rodney to facilitate programs and just general movie watchning.

Gilbert Complex furniture resolution

Hi, it’s Mark Mankin, Coordinator for Facilities at UD sharing with you a video blog for this week. Here I am standing outside the fence where the Gilbert Complex is being torn down behind me. A lot of students, staff and or faculty at UD might wander as they pass by this site where six dorms once sat, what happened to all the furniture that provided room for 600 students. I can assure you that a lot of planning went into what would happen to the furniture so that the environment would not be adversely affected by moving out 600 sets of beds, mattresses, desks, desk chairs and four lounges full of seating and study carrels. Our first goal was to re-use and re-distribute public area furniture from those lounges to other areas of campus that could benefit from having newer and more functional pieces. Sofas, chairs, and desk carrels were distributed to Thompson, Lane, Harrington, and the Rodney Complex. The beds and mattresses from three of the six buildings were re-used in the Russell Complex as they were only 4-5 years old. The beds and mattresses from one of the buildings were kept in a UD furniture warehouse for future use again, due to their recent purchase. The desks for the six buildings were sold to a furniture liquidator in New York that refurbishes and re-sells dorm furniture giving the new pieces a future life, probably at another college or university. The other two buildings worth of beds and mattresses were donated to an Indian Reservation in New Mexico and to the State of Delaware Division of Youth, Children and Families to be used right here in Delaware. The State also received dressers from the buildings in addition to the beds. Basically every piece of furniture out of the Complex was reused, sold, or donated; so that nothing was thrown away. It’s all part of UD’s commitment to sustainability. Thanks for listening. Have a nice day!

Christiana Commons New Furniture Part II

Last spring we replaced the furniture in Christiana Commons Meeting Room A and this past summer we addressed the furniture in the "B" side. As the photo on the left shows, the new furniture is alot more versatile than what was in there previously as it lends itself more to either group study or indivdual study modes. You will also see that the older green carpeting has been replaced with a new carpet design that compliments the furniture and has been replaced on both the A and B sides. The new chairs are similar in style to the ones that were purchased for the Commons' computer lab that have proved very popular.

New and improved Rodney C/D Basement opens for business

While students were enjoying the summer, we were hard at work creating a new kind of space in the basement of Rodney C/D. The goal was to take a "barren," underutilized, poorly lighted, basement and create a living room type atmosphere that would enhance the living experience in Rodney and increase interaction opportunities for the new freshmen residents of the Complex. In addition to changing the lighting and increasing the furniture to facilitate interaction, an area carpet over the hard floor "softens" the look of the area. The final key piece is a 46" flat screen TV mounted on a new wall with an attached DVD player. Initial feedback has been overwhelmingly positive with the most often heard comment being, no one ever hung out in this space before and now there are folks down here all the time. The plan is to go into the other two commons areas and duplicate the same basic design.

"Get out Green" is set to start

"Get out Green" is a program developed and promoted by Residence Life as a pilot this year to try and save room carpets that would otherwise end up at the landfill instead end up in the recycling stream. It is a pilot this year in Dickinson Complex, James Smith, Thomas McKean, and Independence Halls. Residents will be encouraged to leave their used room carpets in designated areas to be picked up at the end of next week and taken to a recycling dumpster off campus where they will go to Georgia to be recycled in a plant. Facilities will be helping by getting the carpets to the recycling bin. Your help is needed to fill up the room pictured above in Independence with your used carpets. Look for information to be posted around the affected buildings giving you info on where to place your carpet to be recycled. Not only will this be great for enviroinment, but it will also save us money for tonnage going to the landfill.

Carpet completed in Smyth Hall

Approximately a year and a half ago a program of carpet replacement was begun in Smyth Hall. It started with the main lounge and then the hallways and finished up just last week with the lounges in the basement and on the second floor. This summer carpet will be replaced in the hallways of Squire and Sussex, which were last done during the Mall Project in the late 90's. Our vendor, Tri-State Carpet, takes the old carpet back to a reclamation dumpster in Wilmington where it is shipped down to Gerogia for recycling. The photo shows the newly carpeted TV/study lounge in the basement of Smyth.

Earth Day should be every day in your "crib"

Today our residence hall furniture participated in an Earth Day celebration in the Trabant Multi-Purpose Room. The display was put together by Residence Life and was entitled the "Green Crib," and included items available at the bookstore that can help "green" your room. The most important action you can take in your residence hall room to celebrate Earth Day doesn't cost anything...just turn off lights when possible and anything plugged into an outlet that you aren't using.

UGA floors to finally "disappear"

This summer a hallway carpet replacement project will transform the three former University Guest Apartment floors on 16-14 back to the appearence of the rest of the floors of the West Tower. The University Guest Apartment floors were created in the mid-1990's as a way to offer a comfortable and convinent apartment style hotel experience to guests traveling to the University. Housing transformed the traditional Christiana Apartments to Guest Apartments by replacing the standard UD dorm furniture with "hotel" furniture. The planning for and subsequent building of the Marriott Courtyard Hotel at Laird Campus meant that the University Guest Apartments were no longer needed and the apartments were transitioned back to regular student use. However, the hallways were never transformed back to the typical appearence of a West Tower floor. The carpet lasted for more than the standard life cycle of 7-10 years so in fact beat the average wear expected in a residence hall prior to replacement. The photos show the red color scheme of the previous UGA floors in the bottom photo, compared to the blue color scheme of the current 13th floor of West Tower in the top photo.

New carpeting in the Commons

Just before Spring Break the Dickinson A/B, Dickinson C/D and Dickinson E/F Commons Lounges received new carpeting. In addition to the new flooring, we are in the process of reupholstering all the furniture pieces in each of these lounges.

Main lounge made new again in Brown Hall

In 1997, Brown Hall was one of the first dorms re-modeled in the large scale "Mall Project," that hit 10 residence halls on North and South Central Campus a little over 10 years ago. In the Mall Project, the buildings were gutted down to the exterior walls and new electrical, plumbing, and HVAC systems were installed to replace the 40-50 year old original utilities. As a result there were public areas that had furniture re-upholstered rather than replaced with new to save some money in the overall budget. Now we are going through and replacing much of the older furniture with brand new pices, as in this lounge in Brown Hall. Other buildings that have received new pieces in the last two years include the main lounge in Sussex and the study and TV lounges in Sypherd.

End of an era...Gilbert Complex to disappear into history.

This summer, Gilbert Complex will be demolished to eventually make way for new dorms down the road. The six buildings were completed in the early sixties and have hosted thousands of UD students in more than 40 years of service. Gilbert's distinctive design features included a hallway that split off into two smaller hallways to accomodate the largest number of singles available for residents of East Campus. The Complex took it's name from a Past President of Newark College in the nineteenth century, later to become UD. This fall only three of the six buildings were occupied. In this picture from January, American Van Lines personnel remove desks and beds from Gilbert E for the last time.

Dickinson floor lounges going blue

Late last fall we began a project to reupholster all the sofas, loveseats, and club chairs in all the floor lounges in Dickinson Complex. We are finishing up by next week in Dickinson F. Unlike most colleges, UD has their own "in-house" upholstery crew that maintains our furniture throughout the residence halls, but also works on pieces in the academic departments. Our upholsterers, Gary and Ed, work tirelessly to make sure that pieces in need of repair are culled from the lounges and then returned within a short period of time. When not doing spot repairs, they work on projects like the Dickinson lounges to upgrade the appearence of an entire complex.

Mecho shades "cover" the campus at UD

Mecho shades have become the window treatment of choice in the residence halls at UD. We started with the Christiana Towers and now have spread their installation across campus including all the new residence halls up north, in West Campus, and in East Campus except for Harrington Complex. One area not addressed that will be started this coming summer is Central Campus. Although the Central Campus buildings underwent an extensive renovation approximately 10 years ago in the "Mall Project," our standard life expectancy for window treatments other than Mecho shades is actually 10 years. In the Mall Project we used simple venetian mini-blinds, which while functional, are less durable than a Mecho shade. The buildings to be retro-fitted this summer include Smyth, Cannon, Sussex, and Squire. Other buildings will follow in succeeding summers. UD gets many calls from colleges and universities across the country asking for input and advice about installing Mecho shades due to the fact that our campus has used so many of the shades in our residence halls.

Stoves with "no time to burn"

Residents around campus are beginning to see a new electric stove in our public area kitchens that is the same as a "normal" stove in all respects except that the burners are flat saucers instead of the typical coil burner. These stoves have a built in Safe-T-Element, which is a patented device that keeps the temperature of each burner from reaching scorching temperatures if left unattended and potentially cause a fire or a nuisance fire alarm. Traditional burners continue to heat up but the Safe-T-Element has a thermostat which operates like a governor, keeping the temperature from rising above a certain level and also cooling down the element. You might wonder how it cooks food and the answer is that little changes in the way food cooks, the only big change being reduction in the threat of a serious fire if accidentally left unattended. The plan is to replace all the stoves in the Christiana Towers in the next two summers with these Safe-T-Element equipped stoves. An added bonus is that it saves electricity versus a traditional burner that "overheats" when not necessary.

Rodney basement extreme makeover plans

The basement ares in the Rodney Commons buildings could use a makeover. One of the basic plans shared with some students and Residence Life is to add an area carpet, new lighting, a big screen TV, some cafe tables for snacks, and some additional comfortable seating. Plans aren't finalized yet but the intent is to make more of a "living room" atmosphere and take the edge off the current institutional look. The first mock-up would occur in Rodney C/D basement late this spring with plans for the other two Commons areas to follow based on feedback from the result in C/D. Input and ideas are welcome.

Christiana Meeting Room Make-Over

Last Thursday the new furniture came in to upgrade the functionality and appearence of the Christiana Commons Meeting Room A. The new furniture above is better quality and has a richer appearence to emphasize the fact that this room is a designed to be used for formal meetings of student groups and conference guests over the summer. Of course when meetings are not in session the room is always available to any resident student to use for study or group projects.

Study areas in Lane and Thompson benefit from Gilbert's demise

Due to the demolition of Gilbert Complex this summer, desk carrels were moved from the unoccupied Gilbert buildings late last year so that the students in Lane and Thompson could use them in their basement study areas. They are replacing older and smaller desk tops that weren't as useful for spreading out books and notes.

Sustainability in practice

The new furniture that is being delivered to Russell Complex has minimal packing material but there is cardboard around the perimeter to protect edges. This cardboard is able to be recycled and in fact is being picked up by UD Grounds. The cardboard that was culled together into this dumpster enclosure is a result of the furniture deliveries for Russell D and E and was picked up by Grounds on Thursday morning.

Russell reaching the end

The Russell Complex renovation that started two summers ago is reaching the end of the line, with new furniture going into the remaining three buildings during Winter Session. The process starting this week with tractor trailers rolling into the parking lot on Wednesday. In an effort to save money and the environment, we are re-using some of the furniture from Gilbert Complex that is less than 5 years old rather than purchasing all new.

Ray Street re-finished

During the Holidays, Ray Street A and B Lounges had the wood work re-finished to look new again. This work had to be done while students were gone due to the nature of the process and odors. Given that the buildings were completed and opened in 1991, it was time to restore the horizontal wood surfaces back to their original condition. In the coming years, other flooring will be addressed including new carpet and floor tile throughout the three buildings.

West Tower entrance "re-floored"

Just before the Holidays the flooring that was constantly coming up and potentially causing a tripping hazard at the third floor entrance into Christiana West Tower was replaced with a new "Safe-T-Zone " tile product that resists slipping. Traffic through this area from the parking lots causes a lot of wear on whatever flooring is used and with the winter weather fast approaching this new surface should stay in place and resist slipping. This tile has also been used on campus at a ramp in the basement of East Hall and also at the morgue in the basement of McKinley Hall.