News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.
Physical Plant and Environmental Health and Safety would like to remind you to pay attention to signage on campus such as barricades created by caution tape and signage indicating hazardous or restricted work areas. Restricted areas are closed for your safety and the safety of our facilities workers and contractors.
The Physical Plant team has nearly completed our relocation to the new facility on the Franz campus. We are repurposing as much as we can throughout campus, however some items remain for which we no longer have an institutional need. Some of these items may be of personal use to the UP community, and we would love to see them put to good use and diverted from the landfill!
We are giving away some older desks, large tables, chairs, a refrigerator, shelves, scrap lumber, and other miscellaneous items. If you have any interest, please feel free to come by the (old) Physical Plant between 4:30 p.m.–6:30 p.m. on Wednesday June 29!
A few caveats:
For any questions, please reach out to physicalplant@up.edu.
On Monday, May 10, Physical Plant’s Custodial Night Staff will resume weekly custodial service to private offices. If you would like to opt out and NOT have custodial service provided starting May 10, please complete the survey linked below by Thursday, May 6th.
https://uportland.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1OlRSvZ9q8RfBj0
Please note:
For questions, please contact Marissa Grice, physical plant, at grice@up.edu.
If you plan to leave your car parked on campus for more than 24 hours anytime between December 14 through January 15, please park it in the main parking lot on campus. All other parking lots and all streets, besides N. Strong Street, will need to be clear of any long term parking.
Over the holiday break, physical plant will be accessing building roofs and trimming trees with a high lift which requires access to parking spaces around most buildings on campus. This will also help in case we need to treat areas for snow and ice.
We apologize if this causes any inconvenience, and we appreciate your partnership in helping us keep our campus safe, clean and beautiful!
For more information contact the physical plant at x7306 or physicalplant@up.edu.
The physical plant’s custodial staff are continuing with cleaning and disinfecting inside all campus buildings. Custodial services is also taking the time to perform deep cleaning, and each employee has received training and is equipped with necessary tools and products to perform their job, including germicidal cleaner.
To prioritize the health and safety of everyone, custodial services will still discontinue cleaning private offices. This will allow custodians to prioritize disinfecting frequently touched surfaces. If you would like trash or recycling service, please place it outside your office by 9 p.m., Sunday – Thursday. Custodians will continue to service reception and shared areas. Office suites will be provided cleaning solution should you wish to clean your space. The service of cleaning private offices will be reassessed as the situation evolves.
Frequently touched surfaces will be disinfected multiple times a day. Custodial services has purchased additional disinfecting equipment, including electrostatic spraying systems to clean areas more efficiently and effectively. Hand sanitizer stations have been added throughout campus as well.
For more information contact Marissa Grice, physical plant, at grice@up.edu.
The physical plant participates in a Strategic Energy Management (SEM) program to track the gas and electricity usage in ten selected buildings across campus. Physical plant personnel meet with a team from Energy Trust of Oregon monthly to discuss reasons for any increases or decreases in savings, then strategize maintenance solutions to minimize energy usage. As the University meets planned milestones we also earn financial incentives to reinvest in energy efficiency projects, which has allowed us to complete projects such as large-scale upgrades to LED lighting and replacing older pieces of equipment with newer and more efficient ones.
The buildings that have been enrolled in this program since 2015 were chosen because they presented the greatest opportunities for increased savings and efficiency, and to represent different types of campus facilities. The enrolled buildings are: Buckley Center, Chiles Center, Clark Library, Corrado Hall, Franz Hall, Haggerty Hall, Kenna Hall, Mago Hunt, Swindells, and Tyson Hall. In 2019, the physical plant reduced electricity usage across those ten buildings by 134,093 kWh and gas usage by 3,197 Therms.
Are you curious about what the energy impact of closing our campus this spring due to COVID precautions looks like? Here is some data for electricity at the Chiles Center, one of the biggest energy users on campus, across the first five months of 2019 and 2020. You can see the overall reduction in usage due to strategic maintenance management in January and February, then the rapid decrease following the closure of campus.
Throughout the campus closure, custodial services personnel have been performing cleaning and disinfecting in all campus buildings. Custodial services is also taking the time to perform deep cleaning in all residential spaces and academic buildings. Each worker has received training and is equipped with necessary tools and products to perform their job, including germicidal cleaner.
To prioritize the health and safety of everyone, custodial services has discontinued cleaning private offices. This will allow custodians to prioritize disinfecting frequently touched surfaces. If you would like trash or recycling service, please place it outside your office by 9 p.m., Sunday – Thursday. Custodians will continue to service reception and shared areas. Office suites will be provided cleaning solution should you wish to clean your space. The service of cleaning private offices will be reassessed as the situation evolves.
As the campus opens back up, frequently touched surfaces will be disinfected multiple times a day. Custodial services has purchased additional disinfecting equipment, including misting systems to clean areas more efficiently and effectively. Hand sanitizer stations are being added throughout campus as well.
For more information contact Marissa Grice, physical plant, at grice@up.edu.
The physical plant would like to learn more about faculty and staff experiences with campus facilities and services. Your feedback is an important element of their efforts towards continuous improvement. Please help the process by clicking this link to a 13-question survey. Responses are anonymous and the survey will close on Friday, January 10.
Please direct any questions to Laurie Tull, physical plant, at tull@up.edu.
A note to the UP community from interim physical plant director Joe Cates:
“I am very sorry to inform everyone that Peng (Mona) Wang recently passed away while she was on leave. Mona was respected and appreciated by all who knew her. She held herself to the highest standard, and had a way of winning over even the most challenging of people.
“I reflect back to just over a year ago when Mona was walking across the stage at the Christmas luncheon to accept the Deiss/Dodson award. Her excitement and enthusiasm lit up the room as her friends in Physical Plant all cheered her on. I am grateful for this memory, and for the opportunity to know Mona, and share in her light.
“Mona was a wonderful member of our community, a beloved wife and mother, and we are fortunate to have had her in our lives. Please keep Mona and her loved ones in your thoughts and prayers.”
After seven years at UP, physical plant director Andre Hutchinson is leaving for a new position as assistant vice president for facilities management at the University of San Diego. Andre’s colleagues will be gathering in the Pilot house on Friday, March 29, from 4 to 6 p.m., to thank him for his service on The Bluff and wish him well as he begins this new chapter. All are invited to attend.
For more information contact Jim Ravelli, University operations, at landtise@up.edu.