More to MU commencement than meets the eye

by Jon Stemmle

s thousands of MU students donned caps and gowns for graduation, Campus Facilities employees were hard at work helping to ensure that their special day would come about.

Through a "PhD teamwork effort" of their own, Campus Facilities' workers made certain that their behind-the-scenes support would allow the Honors Convocation on Francis Quadrangle to move flawlessly and the School of Journalism's graduation ceremonies in Peace Park to go off without a hitch. CF workers had everything laid out and waiting to go. their special day would come about.

While most people see just the pomp-and-circumstance, these annual ceremonies on the Quad involve employees from throughout CF and, in many ways, constitute CF's most publically visible act of teamwork.

"We do this year in and year out,'' said CF's Phil Shocklee, who oversees the Quad setup. "It's a tremendous amount of work done in a short time frame and all handled very proficiently.''

SITTING PRETTY: After months of planning and a week of hard work, CF personnel set the stage for MU's Honors Convocation on Francis Quadrangle. For the Quad's commencement excercises, Building Services workers set up and take down a total of 10,000 chairs. Shown above is seating that workers began putting in place before the sun arose.

10,000 chair salute

The days of the Honors Convocation and School of Journalism commencement are described by building services director, Julia Curry, as the "weekend of 10,000 chairs." Curry's crews function as a chair brigade, setting up and taking down seating for both ceremonies, setting up the stages and keeping the Quad's buildings (such as Jesse Hall) neat and orderly during the heavy-visitor-traffic weekend.

For building services — and for other university staff — the end of the school year means a lot of work done at a frenetic pace.

"It's time consuming and takes lots of manpower," said Lynn Chandler, an assistant supervisor in building services. "This is the toughest single project we do all year.''

MU the beautiful

Before the chairs go up, the grass must go down. That's where landscape services personnel come in.

"Commencement was a lot of work for us. It occupied a crew for a full week trying to clean up from the construction activities," said Tom Flood, superintendent of landscape services. "We needed to make sure everything was cleaned up, mowed up, pruned up and picked up."

This year was even more difficult than most for the landscape services crews, due to construction around Jesse Hall and inordinately wet weather. The week preceding the ceremonies, workers were reseeding, mulching, laying sod, planting flowers and mowing the Quad grass, seemingly around the clock.

"This time of year the grass grows about an inch a day,'' Flood said. "We can't just wait until the day before commencement to mow because you never know when it's going to rain. That means we mow every day, in addition to planting the annual flowers and cleaning up from the construction activities.''

EARLY RISERS: As the sun rises the morning of the Honors Convocation, Building Services personnel are busy putting chairs in place on the Quad.

Unsung heroes

While the Quad's picture-perfect landscape — its neatly trimmed lawns, shrubs, full, stately trees, proud buildings — and thousands of chairs are easy enough to observe, the work of maintenance, energy management, construction management and campus construction workers, while equally important, is a little less obvious.

CF employees from these three groups were responsible for: building a stage for the event; sweeping and pressure-washing the sidewalks; providing electrical service for the public address system; and painting lightposts and map stands.

Among the extra tasks performed this year to improve the look of the Quad was the removal of a temporary transformer from the north side of Jesse Hall.

And preceding the commencement exercises, maintenance crews worked vigorously putting the final touches on the Quad.

CF employees' teamwork resulted in what Administrative Services vice chancellor, Kee Groshong, described as a "wonderful looking event."

Another day…

As the sun set on Sunday's convocation, building services crews gathered to put away the seating, completing yet another "weekend of 10,000 chairs" and beginning the countdown to next year when it'll be time to do it again.