Finance and Operations provides essential services that support the daily activities of more than 29,000 students enrolled in undergraduate, graduate and professional programs at the University. Most of these services run in the background, and we are happy if students can take them for granted. But sometimes we have the opportunity to interact with students on a more personal level, which can be a rewarding experience for staff and students. Read more about how Finance and Operations staff enrich the quality of life for the campus community and support student success: What We Do: Supporting Students.
At 7 a.m., many students are still asleep in the University’s residence halls, but Housekeeping Services staff are already working throughout the buildings to clean restrooms, vacuum and dust study rooms and lounges, and mop and buff floors. Eighty-eight housekeepers and building environmental technicians service and support Carolina’s 34 residence halls and apartment communities and the more than 8,000 students that live there.
But housekeeping staff do more than keep the residence halls clean: they often serve as a friendly face to students who are away from home, many for the first time. Tyrone Williams, a housekeeper at Ehringhaus residence hall, cleans, mops and sanitizes the building’s restrooms. But as he passes students in the hallways, he asks how their classes are going and wishes them good luck on their exams. On other days he doles out more serious advice to students who are homesick or are distracted from their studies. Williams comes to work “to be a problem solver, not just for the building, but also for the students.”
Stevie Thompson, who cleans the floors, carpets and furniture in Ehringhaus, agrees and says he lets students know that if they have a problem, “don’t worry about it, if you need someone to talk to, come to us.”
Housekeeping’s mission is to keep residence halls clean and ensure that students have a safe and comfortable environment to live in. But the way Thompson sees it, “We do all we can to help them out, plus our jobs on top of that.”