Campus prepares for student onslaught

With the fall semester less than a month away, the campus is beginning its transformation from the slow summer months to the fast-paced excitement that comes with the end of August.\nPerhaps the busiest facet of campus this time of year is Residential Programs and Services. With thousands of new and returning students moving into residence halls, RPS has a lot to do.\nRPS Director Bob Weith said staff training is a huge part of preparing for the fall.\n"We have three days of training with professionals, a week with graduate students and another week with 200 RAs and floor presidents," Weith said.\nWeith said RPS is busy preparing for students all summer, working on basic maintenance and projects that can only be done once the residence halls are empty.\n"(Summer) is the only time we can do that without getting in the way of residents or residents getting in the way of us," Weith said.\nEvery summer hundreds of dorm rooms are repainted and recarpeted in preparation for new residents. Weith said outdoor renovation has been particularly important this summer, including concrete being laid in front of Foster and blacktopping done all over campus.\nRPS has also been renovating Briscoe Quad this summer,\n"They've been doing some major renovation in one of the Briscoe dining areas so it can be used for program space for underrepresented groups," Weith said.\nPreparation for move-in day is also on the top of the agenda, Weith said.\n"We've just come out of six or seven weeks of orientation, working with new students and parents," Weith said. "Now we can get back to preparing the buildings, preparing our staff and trying to set up the most welcoming environment we can."\nFor Recreational Sports, preparation mostly involves student staff members as well. \n"We're the second-largest employer on campus, so a huge part is hiring and training people," said Kimberly Ruff, who handles marketing for Recreational Sports.\nDirector of Informal Sports and Aquatics Emily Ward said the student staff must be completely trained and ready when the fall semester starts.\n"Generally the end of July through August is the time that everybody does their hiring and training because we need to be fully staffed when all the students come back," Ward said. "When all the students come back they come into the facility en masse."\nWard said training can be a difficult undertaking because RecSports has so many student employees working in many different areas.\n"We hire students for 18 different types of jobs, so we're looking at 400 kids that are being trained for 18 different types of jobs," Ward said.\nAlthough hiring and training new staff is the biggest part of preparation, Ward said there are many things that need to be done before RecSports is ready to serve the students.\nWard said August is when the staff checks equipment to ensure that everything is running correctly. Repairs must be made before the rush of students in the fall. \n"Our goal is when the semester starts, the facilities are ready to go and we're fully staffed," Ward said.\n-- Contact Campus Editor Karen Green at kamgreen@indiana.edu.