The University of Mississippi Departments of Student Housing, Parking and Transportation and Facilities Management are part of a much larger effort to maintain and prepare campus for student attendance.
Student housing also plans specific traffic routes each year for move-in — a weeklong process that requires hundreds of university staff and volunteers for efficiency. The routes must account for construction and road closures. Samuel Patterson serves as the director of the Department of Parking and Transportation, which supports the Department of Student Housing during move-in.
“The goal is to keep move-in predictable and safe, even when the campus footprint changes,” Patterson said.
The Grove Loop was closed during the student move-in process this month as a result of construction on the new School of Accountancy building, so traffic had to be diverted. Traffic rerouting is coordinated by the Department of Student Housing, the University Police Department, the Department of Parking and Transportation, and others.
“The Grove Loop closure removes a key interior route, which shifts traffic to alternate corridors,” Patterson said. “Ole Miss Transit (OUT) has been advised of the affected route, and our supplemental transportation provider, Cline, is also aware. (The Department of) Student Housing has worked with partners to arrange limited access during move-in.”
Along with organizing student move-in, the Department of Student Housing is also responsible for cleaning, repairs and renovations of residential facilities. John Yuan serves as the director of the Department of Student Housing.
“The Department of Student Housing’s facilities and custodial teams clean every room and apartment, as well as make any necessary repairs, so that all rooms and apartments are ready and welcoming for students each fall,” Yuan said. “Any other larger projects are also taken care of during the summer. This summer, for example, we renovated two buildings in Campus Walk and painted several halls.”
While the Department of Student Housing also takes care of the residence halls, the Department of Facilities Management is responsible for maintaining the rest of campus. With that in mind, the summer is a vital window of time during which the department can clean, upgrade and repair classrooms and other campus buildings.
Mike Dunnavant, who serves as the director of the Department of Facilities Management, highlighted some of the advantages that the summer offers for the department.
“Summertime’s our busiest part of the year because we get into a lot of spaces that we haven’t been able to get into during the two semesters while the students are here, especially classrooms,” Dunnavant said. “We do a lot of classroom upgrades, whether it’s flooring, or painting or ceiling tiles.”
This summer, the department faced some unique challenges regarding champagne stains on campus signs resulting from graduation photoshoots. Such stains are visible on the newly installed Grove Plaza.
The champagne sprayed from popping bottles for photos chemically reacted with the limestone signs. Limestone is porous, which allows for the sugar from the champagne to seep into the stone and cause staining.
“We tried to soft-wash those areas, and (the champagne) came out pretty good,” Dunnavant said. “It looks better than we thought it would.”
The clean-up crew would leave the soft-wash cleaning solution on the sign for hours at a time to get rid of the champagne stains.
“We just had to go back repeatedly and probably do it four or five times, and a few hours each time to try to get (the Grove sign) back in shape,” Dunnavant said.
The department also used this summer to focus specifically on flooring upgrades.
“Where we can, we’re replacing carpet with luxury vinyl planks (LVT),” Dunnavant said. “There’s a lot of food and drink carried around these buildings and into the classrooms, and it’s a lot of maintenance with carpet.”
