Section A·Page 6
The University Daily Kansan
Wednesday, June 16, 1999
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University janitors' work helps to keep Mt. Oread beautiful
Dirty work left to KU custodians
James Williams picks up trash in Wescoe Hall. Williams cleans the fourth floor of Wescoe from 10:30 p.m.to 7 a.m. weeknights.
Photo by Melissa Thornton/KANSAN
By Marta Costello
Kansan staff writer
A man in a worn baseball cap pushes a bright yellow barrel in front of him as he picks up trash at the end of a hallway in Wescoe Hall. Soda bottles, newspapers and fluorescent newspaper filers litter the length of the hall.
James Williams is a Housekeeping Department employee, a branch of Facilities Operations for the University of Kansas. A staff of 142 custodians is responsible for cleaning more than four million square feet in 50 buildings on campus. The job includes cleaning up after students.
"When prospective parents and students come to see the campus, the first thing they see is the landscape and the second thing is the buildings. The impression is generallyu made or broken right then."
Charlie Covert custodian
Williams is one of two custodians who clean the fourth floor of Wescoe Hall. Each custodian takes one side of the floor and one of the two bathrooms. The other three floors of Wescoe take only one person, but the fourth floor needs two because it's a high traffic area and has more classrooms. Williams cleans each classroom and is also responsible for rearranging chairs that have been moved during the day.
cleaning up spills in classrooms, "I clean up spills in classrooms, hallways and bathrooms," he said.
moved turting Students in Summerfield Hall rely on Steven Freed to clean up after them. Freed has worked for Housekeeping for six years. He cleans the third and fourth floors of Summerfield, Monday through Friday.
Freed said he spends about three hours every evening picking up trash. But if there were less trash, he said he could get more done.
"We could be doing other things instead of picking up trash. I could clean a lot more if I didn't have to pick up so much trash." Freed said. "It would make my job easier."
Charlie Covert is one of the custodians who cleans Strong Hall. He's been cleaning drinking fountains, windows and everything else in the building since October. He said if students threw their
trash away instead of leaving it on the ground, it would help.
"They wouldn't do that at home. They wouldn't leave things out in their apartments," Covert said. "This isn't grade school or junior high."
Jim Chateo, associate director of housekeeping, said that the responsibility of keeping the University clean was important.
"When prospective parents and students come to see the campus, the first thing they see is the landscape and the second thing is the buildings. Their impression is generally made or broken right then," Choate said.
Williams works the third cleaning shift in Wescoe from 10:30 p.m. to 7 a.m. There are two other shifts: a morning shift from 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. and an evening shift from 5:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. Both Freed and Covert work the evening shift. The shifts are intended to allow custodians time to clean when fewer students will be around.
Chatee said most of the noisy, detailed cleaning is done on the third shift because the buildings are empty.
The number of custodians it
areEmpty.
"You can't do the vacuuming when there are students around studying." Choate said.
takes to clean a building varies depending on the size and setup of a building. Buildings with labs, like Malott Hall, take more time than a building with auditoriums, like Budig Hall.
"This is a big campus. There's an awful lot going on," Choate said.
Covert said that even with 142 custodians, Housekeeping is understaffed.
"One person can only do so much," he said. "I think we should have about 500 people doing this job to do it well."
Mondays are the worst in Summerfield because custodians don't clean during the weekend but students are there, Freed said.
Some nights Wescoe can be downright flithy.
Williams said Wednesdays and Thursdays are the worst because students try to group all of their classes in the middle of the week, and the inserts from The University Daily Kansan every Wednesday add to the litter problem.
The amount of trash littering the halls of Wescoe upsets supervisor Mike Lindeman. Lindeman is responsible for making sure everything gets cleaned properly during Williams' shift, but he is disgusted with students' apathy about trash.
"They have no respect for their school. There are trash cans all over the place," Lindeman said. "Anything you can imagine is all over the floors."
of the room.
Supervisor Willie Steel works in Malott Hall and has been at the University for 15 years. He gets upset by the amount of trash too, but understands how it gets that way.
"Students and teachers have other things that concern them. Cleaning the buildings is just a part of the job," Steel said. "Sometimes it is excessive though. There are plenty of trash cans."
Chatee said that some were inconsiderate, but for the most part students were good about throwing away trash. He said that 25,000 students can make things a little messy.
tune itessy.
"A lot of students respect what we do, otherwise the trash cans wouldn't be full."
Edited by Mike Miller
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