Frontline workers at MSU continue stewardship of campus during COVID-19 pandemic

For most of 2020, MSU’s campus was a much quieter place than usual.

Beginning in March, in-person classes were suspended and students were encouraged to continue their education from home in the interest of keeping everyone safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. The usual sound and sight of bicycles, scooters, students spending sunny days outside, the bustle of lecture halls and conference rooms, was replaced with the wind in the trees, the sound of birds and the echo of empty classrooms.

It’s this image that most students, faculty and staff think of while they work, study, and research remotely. But campus has been far from idle. Throughout the pandemic, IPF’s frontline workers have spent their days and nights on campus keeping buildings functioning, keeping the power on, maintaining the grounds, continuing construction projects and ensuring the safety of those still in East Lansing.

Deb Rowe normally manages the scheduling of chartered buses for MSU events and activities. But during the pandemic, she’s taken on a different job: chauffeuring COVID-19 positive students to designated quarantine housing. Rowe and the other four drivers who chauffeur students have all volunteered for the job.

As she gave us a tour of the specialized van they use, Rowe explained, “I took two students this week, one at a time. They bring a suitcase, a computer, a printer, snacks, water.” But some students who’ve tested positive are asymptomatic and opt to walk across campus to quarantine.

When she gets a call, Rowe dons a high-visibility jacket to protect her clothing and doubles up on her masks. She preps the van, empty except for one seat in the back and a protective shield between the cab and rear. After shuttling the student to their destination, she’ll park the van and sanitize it and her jacket with a special aerosolized cleaning solution.

“At the beginning, everybody was just scared of everything,” said Rowe. “Now we have 15 minutes between students to clean. We’ve got it down to a science.”

Throughout the course of the pandemic, IPF employees have remained on campus to ensure it continues to thrive and is ready for when students return. This includes building maintenance, cleaning and sanitization, heating and cooling, plumbing, and sustaining MSU’s grounds and award-winning urban arboretum.

The team at IPF’s Transportation Services ensures all of MSU’s vehicles, from garbage trucks to Zambonis, are kept in working order and on the road. The service garage is housed under Spartan Stadium, hidden in plain sight in the middle of campus.

“Campus doesn’t stop running just because we’re in the middle of a pandemic,” said Lou Slater, service garage supervisor. “Our guys have been here the whole time, doing demanding work, the kind of work that’s critical to MSU’s health as a university.”

Visitors to MSU will also see new signage reinforcing MSU’s safety precautions and mask mandates. There are roadside signs, banners on buildings, floor stickers, interior building signs and lawn signs all throughout campus, much of which was made in-house at IPF’s Sign Shop and installed by the team.

Kim Piper, IPF sign maker, has the privilege to work closely with IPF carpenters, electricians and metal workers when she’s creating what is some of the most visible work on campus.

“When they get a chance to do something, they really rise to the challenge,” she said. “A lot of our signage is custom-made to complement where it’s installed.”

But the efforts of some frontline workers isn’t as visible. All campus structures require continuous maintenance to ensure they’re ready when occupancy increases in the fall. Courtney Hasse is part of IPF’s facilities maintenance team where she spends a lot of time in cramped, hard-to-reach places doing the work that will keep students and others safe when they return to campus.

“It’s not visible what we do,” Hasse said. “We’re changing out filters and putting in high-quality filters for students to be able to breathe cleaner air. We’re cleaning pipes to make sure there’s fresh water in every building.” To date, IPF has installed more than 60 air purification devices in buildings--and 238 in campus elevators--that use ultraviolet light to clean the air.

High-touch surfaces have also been a priority for keeping the community safe. From research labs to the Olin Health Center and MSU Library, IPF custodians have adapted their cleaning protocols to meet updated CDC cleaning guidelines.

“Our custodians have always done a thorough job cleaning, but the pandemic has increased the community’s interest in maintaining a clean and healthy work environment,” says Judy Ramirez, custodial supervisor.  “Explaining our cleaning protocols has solidified the positive relationships we have with our partners.”

"Having the custodial team here each night gave our staff the extra reassurance they needed,” said Susan Kleitch, Olin Health Center finance and operations director last fall. “We’re confident that we’re as protected from COVID as possible when we start our workday the following morning.”

Custodial Services has installed more than 700 new hand sanitation stations throughout campus, distributed 350 gallons and 750 spray bottles of virucidal disinfectants, and provided 500 buckets of disinfectant wipes for customer use. This is in addition to the more than 25,000 gallons of disinfectant used annually in our daily cleaning process, ensuring the rest of campus can operate as close to business-as-usual as possible.

As the environment around the pandemic continues to evolve, IPF’s frontline workers continue to deliver facilities services that ultimately help Spartans change the world.

“Over the last year this team has gone above and beyond to support our campus through the COVID disruption and the consistent challenges it has brought,” said Dan Bollman, vice president for strategic infrastructure planning and facilities. “Taking a leadership role in such uncertain times is challenging. But those of us at IPF never back down from a challenge.”