Various MSU departments are gearing up for summer, with some hiring extra help and others preparing to scale back.
Departments across the board are changing their operations during the summer semester, as Landscape Services officials bring in additional employees to tackle outdoor tasks and campus cafeterias roll back their operations in the absence of thousands of students.
About 30 student workers will tend to MSU’s grounds this summer, completing litter pick-up, weeding and lawn mowing, along with setting up for special events.
During the school year, Landscape Services employs only three students, Gerry Dobbs, the department’s landscape services manager, said in an email.
“We appreciate working with the professors and administrators who recommend students for hire,” Dobbs said, adding he hopes working with the department can eventually spring students to other jobs.
In the cafeterias, operations are scaled back.
The Riverwalk Market at Owen Hall, Brody Square and The Gallery at Snyder and Phillips halls are open varying hours across the summer, but other cafeterias will only open for conferences and summer camps, said Katie DeCamp, the human resources manager for Brody Square and West Circle Neighborhood.
About 150 students are expected to work in Brody Square this summer, compared to about 600 student employees who work in the facility during the school year.
About 110 of those employees worked in Brody during the school year, but the remainder are workers transferring from cafeterias that will be closed down for much of the summer, DeCamp said.
Some cafeterias open sporadically for summer camps and conferences, but not often enough to guarantee steady working hours, she said.
Brody Square’s hours are slightly shortened during the summer — the cafeteria closes at 10 p.m. in the summer compared to at midnight during the regular school year, DeCamp said. A drastically reduced on-campus student population leads to lower cafeteria demand, she said.
“We don’t anticipate as much business (at other cafeterias),” she said. “We will be able to guarantee them more working hours during the summer.”
Physiology junior David Hurley is preparing to switch from his job working in East Neighborhood’s cafeterias to working for the facilities division of Campus Living Services, which employs students to perform maintenance in residential halls. Cafeteria hours were too infrequent to guarantee steady work during the summer, he said.
“It’s open, but they have sporadic hours,” he said. “(Working in the facilities division), you can get 40 hours a week.”
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