As Colorado State University prepares for the annual celebration around homecoming weekend, Housing & Dining Services is expressing gratitude to the campus community for its broad, collective effort this year to welcome home a record-breaking number of new and returning students during move-in week.
“Housing & Dining Services was thrilled to have such a wide array of campus support for move-in this year,” said Jim Dolak, executive director. “Everyone from CDOT to the City to nearly 2,000 CSU volunteers made our biggest move-in to date a resounding success.”
Approximately 6,200 students moved into the halls with assistance from 1,100 fraternity and sorority members, 320 student athletes, 400 Housing & Dining Services professional and student staff, 140 Facilities Management staff, and RamFam volunteers.
“Fully prepared to endure long lines, do hours of heavy lifting, not find parking for unloading the car and worse, I was amazed at how wrong I was,” said parent Stephanie Stern. “Within minutes of finding front-row, side-by-side parking spaces, many cheerful, helpful volunteers proceeded to unload both cars and carry everything up to my daughter’s second-floor room. Unbelievable. Thank you to everyone: those directing traffic, those patiently answering endless questions. Everyone.”
Many CSU faculty and staff also indirectly supported move-in efforts by using alternative transportation and remote parking on the busiest days to leave central parking spots open for students and their families.
“This year’s move-in efforts were more challenging than in the past due to parking changes resulting from construction projects on campus. To enhance collaboration with the Housing & Dining Services move-in committee, we established a 15-person coalition that worked for weeks to map out the logistics of parking and traffic flow for move-in week,” said Steve Hultin, executive director of Facilities Management. “But getting the logistics right wasn’t enough. It took the collective goodwill of employees who helped create additional parking capacity by taking alternative transportation along with the dedication of volunteers who manned the residence hall frontlines.”
More than 1,800 students moved into the halls by Wednesday, August 19 with just over 4,300 moving in on Thursday, August 20. With parents, families, students, and volunteers visiting the dining centers on the 20th, 6,377 meals were served by the end of lunchtime. An additional 7,500 meals were served that evening at the First Year Student and Family Picnic with the Alumni Association, where a 97 percent diversion rate was achieved by recycling and composting picnic serving ware and food scraps.
Cardboard recycling efforts were also record-breaking this year with 23.3 tons of cardboard collected for recycling around the halls compared to the previous record of 20 tons in 2014. Eco Leaders, a student organization, and Facilities Management volunteers staffed 17 cardboard corrals to ensure that recycling was considered before dumpsters. For the first time, Styrofoam was also collected for recycling with about 15 yards successfully recycled.
“As part of our commitment to a sustainable campus, we are proud that one of the first experiences our incoming students had at CSU was green through our recycling, composting, and alternative transportation programs,” said Carol Dollard, the university’s energy engineer and co-chair of the President’s Sustainability Committee, which oversees CSU’s sustainability initiatives.
