Student Life and the new "digs"

Impressive right? 2 blog posts in 2 weeks!

As promised, the topic of this blog is our new “digs.” Today, we are officially moving across the hall to our new office. The “new” is part of the Iowa Hall renovation which includes a new Admissions office, a new space for Sammy’s Café, and some major upgrades to our general seating area (our “student union” feel).

Thanks to a great president, great vice-president, and numerous others, we truly got everything we could have asked for (and a whole lot more) in our new space. Gone are the days when our student employees fold t-shirts and make flyers on my desk – they now have plenty of room to themselves. We have roughly three times the space, an extra office, and enough storage that we can finally start to have everything in one place. For the past several years, we’ve had 3.5 storage closets and a little of everything spread across campus. Now we have almost all of it in one spot.

There are still some minor details to be finished up in our new office and the construction outside the office is still in full swing, but we’re certainly excited about today, and excited for everything to be finalized in the next few months with the new seating and new Admissions office.
As for us, we’ve got Mary in the front, and in the offices we’ve got Nick (Admissions Advisor), Sharon (Housing Coordinator), and myself. As for the view in the new offices, that’s not bad either (see below). So when you get the chance, stop by to say hello and get the grand tour.

Mary Huffman (Office Coordinator) in the new reception area

A view from one of the new offices

I'm Back!

It hits me every few months, that feeling that I’m a few months behind on my blog. Every time I post I think “I need to do this more often.” Now, I’m going to actually commit myself to that. Do I have anything big to write about at the current moment? Not really, but I get the question numerous times each summer, “you get the summers off right?” or “so what do you do all summer with no events going on?”

With that, I’ll tell you what my job consists of as the summer rolls along. Though we don’t have any events scheduled or clubs meeting over the summer, there is still a lot going on. Most of my time is spent planning. This “planning” stage would likely be boring for anyone else, but I enjoy it. Whether it’s planning events for the fall, or updating club forms and policies, I try to get as much of this work done over the summer so when the new year starts, I don’t have to worry as much about the paperwork and planning and I can spend more time on making each event and each club the best it can be.

I also see several incoming students and parents each summer as I help with orientations across the campus. From one of a few big orientations on campus for specific programs to the 5 orientations a week for our liberal arts & transfer students, I’m often showing parents around and giving them the overview of what life at Kirkwood is all about.

The recent (and upcoming) excitement with my job is relating to our new office space. Minor construction and moving of offices started more than a year ago for us, and a little more than two months ago, construction of our new area began. Sometime within the next two weeks, we will officially move into our permanent home. I’m sure that will be the topic of my next blog (hopefully with a few photos as well) so stay tuned J