Students may soon be able to enjoy cleaner residence halls on the weekends. Facilities Management will add custodial services in dorms for Spring Weekend and is planning additional weekend coverage, Facilities Management officials told The Herald.
Facilities Management is currently discussing various possibilities for weekend service with the Office of Residential Life. "One scenario could be just taking the trash out or just cleaning the bathroom," said Stephen Maiorisi, vice president for facilities management.
Although some University buildings such as Faunce House and Manning Chapel are regularly maintained on weekends, residence halls do not currently receive normal weekend cleaning, said Donna Butler, director of custodial services.
Facilities Management has worked with ResLife to target specific weekends when custodial services would be most effective. Weekend cleaning was added for Parents Weekend last October and will be in place for Spring Weekend next month, Maiorisi said.
Parents Weekend, which was the first time custodial staff cleaned residence halls over the weekend, was a "test run," Maiorisi said. "Feedback was very positive," he added.
Facilities Management administrators decided to try to provide increased cleaning services in acknowledgement of the fact that "students are here 24/7," Maiorisi said.
"We should be providing service as best we can throughout the week," he said, noting that the decision to provide increased cleaning services over the weekend was not a reaction to residence halls being messier.
Students enthusiastically embraced the idea of increased cleaning on weekends. "It's definitely something we can use," said Kari Lisa Johnson '09. A Diman House resident, Johnson said she found "a red plastic cup sitting on the toilet" last weekend as well as an "interesting" odor permeating the bathroom and "toilet paper strewn about." She also said it was not uncommon to find vomit in the bathroom on weekends.
Currently, custodial workers are not on duty in residence halls during the weekend, but students can call Facilities Management if their bathroom needs cleaning.
"What happens almost every weekend is somebody gets called in if somebody calls our service response, we go and take care of (the situation) as needed," Maiorisi said.
Maiorisi said weekend cleaning was discussed during contract negotiations with union representatives for Facilities Management workers last October. The issue of overtime pay during weekends came up during the negotiations because Facilities Management "wanted to do a couple different things" with their shifts, Maiorisi said.
A proposal to hire a set of part-time workers for the weekends was rejected in favor of paying existing workers overtime for weekend work, said Karen McAninch, business agent for United Service and Allied Workers of Rhode Island, who led negotiations for the union last October.
