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.