Email sent to all faculty and staff on May 21, 2018

Dear Colleagues,

We know, it’s not even summer yet. It feels far too early for an email about what to expect next fall with the first football game.

Yet, many people across campus have spent the winter months working on game weekend operations on campus. We’ve reviewed everything about last year’s season, which we think went well. We also are making some adjustments where we can. We want to share our progress with you now, before campus attention shifts to summer.

We’d like to first acknowledge that we’ve received tremendously positive feedback about how smoothly our first season with an on-campus stadium was executed. Many things went well, according to our campus community, the larger Fort Collins community and our city partners, and game attendees. This is the result of the hard work of dozens of people across campus. We thank you, and appreciate how much each of you care about the success of our university.

Home football games are scheduled for:

• Saturday, Aug. 25
• Saturday, Sept. 8
• Saturday, Sept. 22
• Saturday, Oct. 13
• Friday, Oct. 26
• Saturday, Nov. 17

You can find the complete football game schedule here: http://csurams.com/schedule.aspx?path=football.

A website has been developed to better coordinate game-weekend events and activity requests, at https://www.fm.colostate.edu/gameDays. This website includes the game-day schedule, guidelines for holding events associated with or not associated with games, and a form to request serving alcohol at events that are outside of the tailgate area (such as at a reception in an academic building). We encourage you to submit information about your event or activity as early as possible; events and activities submitted by July 15 with receive priority review for campus resources.

As we’ve spent the last few months working through some key points with campus partners, one of our guiding tenets is that our program and fan base will continue to grow. We acknowledge, for example, that not all of the parking on campus was used; however, our planning accommodates continued growth.

Moving forward, we are making some adjustments in response to what worked well, what needs improvement, and comments gathered from campus and our fans:

1. We hope that football game day can provide positive engagement opportunities. We’ve improved the process for how groups holding events or activities on campus on a game weekend can reserve space and work with Facilities Management, CSUPD and other support staff. We’re in the process of finalizing the website mentioned above (https://www.fm.colostate.edu/gameDays). It contains more information and a streamlined process to ensure events are supported, affordable, and that you have help coordinating the necessary logistics. We expect this website portal to be able to address your needs; it was created to facilitate campus-wide coordination and to ensure that information reaches support units, including those mentioned above.
2. Our RamWalk and its bright orange stripe was a great hit and proved to be gathering spot. RamWalk is along Meridian through lot 236 just west of Newsom Hall. We’re moving parking out of lot 236 to lot 475 so that we don’t have vehicle traffic and parked cars mixed with the crowd drawn by the new game-day tradition of RamWalk.
3. We learned that our plan for accommodating fans with ADA needs could be more robust. We’re reassigning more than 100 spaces in lot 575 (just south of the South College Ave Parking Garage) that were dedicated to student repark to fans with ADA needs. We already have a shuttle route going between the lot and the stadium. This adds more spaces in an accessible area, and we’re also working to expand game day ADA shuttle access to the West side of the stadium.
4. Student repark went well. Virtually all students were on point and moved their cars on time, and we identified some areas that we can improve to make the process easier for them.  We’re removing the repark spaces from South Campus and adding spaces from the Lake Street Garage (lot 570). This helps students by providing additional repark options that are closer to main campus. Athletics and university partners are looking at adjusting student repark times as necessary for the home game schedule, including assessing needs for our home game scheduled for Friday, Oct. 26 (see below).
5. In response to campus needs, we’re allocating a number of campus use spaces during each game day that can be used for non-game day activities. Some examples of this include providing parking for participants in high school ACT testing that’s held on campus during a Saturday each fall. We will focus on providing those spaces from the Engineering and LSC lot and the UCA lots.  It is not complete yet, but similar to the process of securing parking for faculty and staff who need to be on campus on game day, there will a process for units to request these parking spaces if needed. This process will be shared once all details are finalized.
6. We will continue to reserve parking spaces for faculty and staff needs on game days. This includes faculty and staff who need to be on campus to check in on research projects or other work-related duties. Similar to last season, faculty and staff who do need access to parking on a game day can access parking passes through a request process. We are reviewing the process used last year, when employees asked Department Heads for passes, to look at any changes that may be helpful this fall. Faculty and staff who are attending the game for pleasure must still make parking arrangements similar to other game ticket holders.
7. We’re also adding more parking options for single game ticket holders, as well as some mini-plan parking packages for those who come to only a few home games. We’ll provide options online before a game, and also create a system to allow fans to pay cash for game-day parking in the Lake Street Garage.
8. Parking and Transportation Services added an additional section to the Moby parking lot.   These spaces are physically separate from the main parking at Moby. We are investigating a plan for allowing single game ticket purchasers to park there on a cash basis, and allow tailgating. This expands parking and tailgating options for guests to our campus.
9. Finally, by now you know that we will be hosting the annual Border War football game vs. Wyoming at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 26. Most of the game day policies and procedures will remain the same as a Saturday game, but certainly there are needed adjustments that will be made to ensure access to campus for faculty, staff and students when hosting a Friday evening, week-day game on campus. We are working hard on a plan to accommodate student, faculty and staff needs and will have specific details to share soon.

Please keep an eye on your email and on SOURCE as our first game of the new academic year approaches. We will be sharing more information about special parking uses, such as for non-game day events and activities, and confirming the process for faculty and staff to request work-related parking permits for game-day weekends. We plan to expand internal communications this year to help campus navigate game-day impacts and needs.

Thanks to all of you for helping make our first season at the new stadium a success. We appreciate the spirit in which everyone worked together to make this possible. We look forward to a fall full of festivities in a few months.

 

Thank you,

Blanche Hughes, Vice President for Student Affairs

Lynn Johnson, Vice President for University Operations

Rick Miranda, Provost and Executive Vice President

Joe Parker, Director of Athletics