UND Today

University of North Dakota’s Official News Source

To UND’s essential workers taking care of campus: Thank you

Campus is quiet, but UND’s cooks, police officers and others keep critical activities moving along

University of North Dakota cook Lori Goulet prepares cheeseburgers at Wilkerson Commons, where she is a part of an essential-personnel team that keeps feeding the students who live on campus amid the coronavirus outbreak. Photo by Mike Hess/UND Today.

Megan Thomas struggled to find the words. She paused, then tried again. How do you describe a campus that only a few weeks back buzzed with activity, even if snow powdered the ground and temperatures still pricked exposed skin?

At the end of April, when the weather finally warms up, students would usually lounge on the grass blanketing the main quad; staff and faculty would stop to chat on their way to the next meeting. But not this spring.

“Campus just feels different,” said Thomas, the University of North Dakota’s associate director of housing operations. “It is empty.”

Over a month ago, UND shuttered in-person instruction, turning to remote classes in order to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Most staff switched to doing their jobs from home. Some of them, though, continued to report to campus every day. Thomas is one.

As an essential employee, she arrives in her office at 8 in the morning. There are still students who are unable to safely return home and, thus, continue to live in UND’s residence halls. Thomas helps take care of them, answering their questions and assisting them with the services they need. Last month, she also helped scores of other students decamp the dorms. It was a really, really busy time for the housing staff, she said.

Daily, Thomas would also scan and e-mail paper documents to her co-workers who need them in order to work from home. She admires her peers who juggle work and children while attempting to keep a sort of normalcy during the COVID-19-triggered physical distancing rules, she said. For her, coming to the office “provides a routine.”

“We are working together as a campus community,” Thomas said.

There are housing staff, police officers, cooks, maintenance crews, cleaning crews, even some student employees, among others, who work on campus, practicing social distancing measures, amid the coronavirus outbreak.

“We are so very thankful to our colleagues who are essential workers and still come to campus every day,” said UND Provost and Vice President for Student Affairs Tom DiLorenzo. “We could not continue our basic university functions without them.”

For building automation supervisor Robert D’Heilly, an almost empty campus has actually turned into an opportune setting to carry out projects that would move rather slowly if buildings weren’t vacant.

“Now that there aren’t a lot of people in the buildings, we can get into the spaces without disturbing classes,” D’Heilly said. “We are able to go in there and get our work done a little bit faster, and we can do more of our projects with minimal scheduling conflicts.”

While he spends part of his days in Zoom conference calls, D’Heilly, his crew and outside contractors have been working on upgrading buildings, replacing heat pumps and dampers and other mechanicals to lower deferred maintenance until the campus fully connects to the new steam plant.

Even amid a global pandemic, UND’s maintenance staff has kept an upbeat attitude, D’Heilly said.  “Between our work and then working with the contractors, we stay pretty busy,” he said. “We don’t have a whole lot of time to sit around and think about the ‘what if.’”

The same notion holds true for UND Police Officer Austin Brockling. When asked about how his work has changed during the pandemic, he spoke with the matter-of-fact tone one could expect from a law enforcement professional. Yes, there are fewer people around, but for Brockling, little has changed.

UND Police Officer Austin Brockling patrols campus. Photo by Mike Hess/UND Today.

“We patrol just as often as we have before; we’re ever vigilant,” he said. “We consistently try to make sure that we’re on top of things. We’re a very proactive department. At these particular times, that includes making sure we’re doing a lot of walking through buildings and making sure our assets are secure as a university.”

For cooks Brian Brodina and Lori Goulet, the switch to remote instruction has meant fewer students to feed. At first, it came as a shock to Brodina, who certainly did not anticipate the scale of the coronavirus-triggered health crisis. He did not expect for campus to empty out, either.

“For me, it was a little nerve-racking, a little high anxiety to come to work, because I have an underlying medical condition and so does my son,” said Brodina.

Goulet also worries. She also has a child with underlying medical conditions. She also wondered whether it is safe to continue working.

“I am going by what my child’s doctor in Minneapolis says, and as of right now, we’re supposed to just keep doing what we’re doing,” Goulet said. “I work with the same core group of people every day. So as long as our doctor keeps telling me that it’s safe for me to go to work, I’m still going.”

Both Goulet and Brodina appreciate the efforts of UND’s leadership to keep essential workers safe. There is no shortage of masks, they said. If before they would work near other personnel at Wilkerson Commons, now they prepare food – omelets for breakfast, fried chicken, cheeseburgers and hamburgers later in the day – away from each other. Compared to a regular semester, not many students come in, but those who do must stay six feet apart and wait for their meals to be boxed up for them; no self service, no dining in.

With the protective rules it has enacted, “I think UND takes care of us,” Goulet said.

And, the University’s essential workers take care of campus in return. D’Heilly said, “Campus is quiet. It’s peaceful. It will be ready when students return.”