On Sunday nights, dorm hallways are not a pretty sight to see.
Posters are torn down, empty cups and Marvin's bags litter the ground, and stray socks line the baseboards. The bathrooms are often too horrifying for words.
Yet, when college students arise Monday morning, the mess is gone, as if by magic. Trash has disappeared, mirrors are shining, and even the tiniest crumbs have been whisked away.
The same before and after story can be told in regards to broken doors, burnt-out light bulbs, full recycling cans, empty vending machines, bad plumbing and ravaged flowerbeds. One minute the campus is a mess, the next it is postcard-worthy.
A few weeks ago, senior Taylor True talked to three faculty members, Carol Steele, Anthony Barratta and Jennifer Everett, about her senior project on recycling. All three professors pointed her directly to Tony Robertson, assistant director of Facilities Maintenance and a man who has been integral in DePauw's sustainability efforts.
According to True, when recycling efforts first began on DePauw's campus, the majority of the work was left up to facilities workers.
"Administration pretty much handed the facilities department recycling bins and said, 'figure it out,'" True said.
This is where Robertson stepped in.
Professor Jennifer Everett, associate professor of philosophy, got to know Robertson through working with him on various sustainability projects. Through this work she has learned how key Robertson, and others like him, are to both campus sustainability and to campus life as a whole. Robertson could not be reached before publication, but Everett commented on his work at DePauw.
"Tony has been here for a very long time, and has seen recycling systems come and go and has worked really hard, but there isn't a very good forum where all the things he has accomplished can be put out for the students to see," Everett said.
For Everett's classes, students are often pushed to communicate with staff members in order to complete projects and assignments related to recycling. Everett said that students are often shocked by how helpful staff members are.
"The idea that the staff know things, care about things and are as pressed for time as absolutely everybody else, in many ways more so, and yet are still so willing to help students, it sort of a wake-up call," she said.
Unfortunately, said Everett, there are many such people on campus working very hard and getting very little credit for it.
"They're on top of things, they're dedicated to their work, and they have all these skills that the rest of us are utterly reliant on. I could not do my work, at all, without them," she said.
Included in Everett's "they" are the custodial workers. Candice Price, who is a section leader for facilities, manages 24 people, which includes setting up their scheduling, placing them in buildings on campus and signing off on timecards. Aside from this, Price sets up for campus events, and fills in herself when they're short on staff.
"I pretty much do whatever needs to be done for the day-anything that they need, I do," Price said.
An average day for a custodial worker begins at around 7 a.m. In the dorms they use this time to clean public areas: lobbies, common areas, stairways and so forth. After 9:30 or 10:00 a.m., they begin cleaning student living areas, including bathrooms and hallways. In academic buildings, once the cleaning is done, the workers set up for events going on that day.
However, this dry run of Price's schedule doesn't begin to include all she does.
"You'd be surprised by how much [the students] talk to us," she said, "It's almost like I'm a mom-this is a home away from home."
For Price, this often means making sure students are adjusting properly, and ensuring that the proper steps are taken if they seem to be having problems.
"Any problems, any issues with the students and we'll say to the R.A., 'hey, we think this student might be needing help," Price said.
Linda Sellick is a facility service provider who has been working at DePauw for almost 35 years, and agreed that she tries to provide a support system for students.
"You try to make them feel at home. I always tell my students, 'if you need anything let me know and I'll help you if I can and if I can't I'll get somebody who can,'" she said.
Sellick was once put in the unfortunate position of stepping in when a student didn't get the help they needed.
"You don't want to know the worst thing I've had to clean up," she said, "we had a student commit suicide over in Lucy one year-it was pretty bad."
Though Sellick feels that today she would not have been the one called in, at the time when the suicide occurred, "after they got done with the investigation we just went into the room and packed it up and cleaned."
But student-staff interaction is far from being even mostly related to tragedy.
"I don't make fast friends with all the students, but there's always a couple every year that you just take to. There's always one or two you just have to be friends with," Sellick said.
She reminisced about a boy who lived in Mason, a building where she worked for 15 years.
"He looked and acted just like Eddie Murphy-he was the funniest kid I've ever seen," said Sellick.
Sellick went on to describe the boy as having "dreads" and that on graduation day when someone-without dreadlocks-came up behind and picked her up, she thought, "what the heck," before realizing it was her friend, now dread-less.
"He said his mom had made him get a 'big boy hair cut' for graduation and so he had a normal haircut. I didn't even recognize him. He was a good kid."
Student interaction has gone even beyond bear hugs for Sellick.
"I have a few who still come back for alumni events and they'll come and stay at my house," she said.
Both the student relationships Sellick and Price have experienced, as well as Robertson's academic input to student lives "are not part of their job description," according to Everett.
"They go above and beyond when they contribute to the education experiences of students, but they do it happily," she said.
"I still don't know everything [the staff] does and everything it takes-and I'm a senior here," True added.
While it's impossible to ignore the results these people achieve with their work-clean buildings, perfectly pruned shrubs and weed-free sidewalks-it's all too easy to ignore the people themselves.
"I think the nature of the work makes it easy to overlook," True said. "we're an academic institution and then over here's our trash. But none of our buildings and none of our systems on campus would run without the staff."
Everett agreed whole-heartedly.
"I think the staff of this university are extremely knowledgeable people," she said "They're just awesome."
