Western Kentucky University - Talisman Yearbook (Bowling Green, KY)

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to prep tine Mill... dures to handling sensitive problems on their floors. “The returning RAs, having been through last year’s rather hectic and de- manding opening of school, seemed to come into the workshop thinking, ‘We're in this together; we're prepared for the worst,’ ” Anne Murray, assistant dean of student affairs, said. “It’s the feeling you have when you enter a ball game or a war.” In the university center, College Heights Bookstore manager Buddy Childress and his crew concentrated on filling the text- book requests and ordering supplies. “There are always changes in require- ments, late decisions on selections and new faculty coming in who have not submitted A BLAST OF WHITE FOAM from a multipurpose fire extinguisher heads toward a straw fire during a safety demonstration for RAs in August by Dave Murray of the safety department. The RAs returned a week early for their workshop. Ron Hoskins requests,” Childress said. So the staff of 30 spent July and August completing “total book needs as well as receiving, checking, pricing and shelving those books ordered.” “We're caught in the middle between the students who need the books and the pro- fessor who orders them, plus the publish- er,” Childress said. ‘The troubles stay the same — it’s just the titles that change.” Downstairs in the university center, food services kept busy. ‘When I came here 12 years ago, summer was fun time,” said Louis Cook, assistant director of food services. But now it means repairing equip- ment, buying equipment and supplies, and feeding the 4,149 summer term students. Cook said the first food delivery before school included about 1,300 cases of canned goods. Other food needed to start the semester included more than 1,000 pounds of chicken, 5,000 servings of creamed potatoes, 500 pounds of hambur- ger and 240 gallons of Coca-Cola. But in terms of sheer numbers, nothing approached the consumption of the IBM 360 Model 40 computer on the third floor of the administration building. Operations manager John Foe said, “from Aug. 8 to Aug. 22, we ran 24 hours a day.” The staff consisted of 15 full-time workers who were on call constantly, and four advanced computer students who worked up to 60 hours a week. Foe said 438,121 eighty-column data pro- cessing cards — equal to several million lines of information — went through the computer in 15 days. While the center aver- ages 300,000 lines a day, according to Foe, it exceeded 900,000 lines Aug. 11, when most of the information cards were produced. In terms of human effort, however, the physical plant took honors. Director Owen Lawson’s workers spread about 4,000 gallons of paint across 1,310 rooms in four dorms, laid 3,000 yards of carpet in the university center game room and Helm Library, installed about 2,500 re- frigerators, remarked 5,000 parking spaces, built a new parking lot on Regents Ave- nue, painted all handrails, outside doors and signs, reupholstered most of the dorm lobby furniture, placed new dressers in East Hall, installed office petitions and re- furbished the heating plant. Yet while he kept his 375 summer em- ployees (100 more than usual) working overtime throughout August with no vaca- tions, Lawson said it wasn’t until 6 a.m., Saturday, Aug. 20, that the dorms were ac- tually ready ... (continued on page 18) TENS OF THOUSANDS OF LINES were painted by the physical plant staff in about three weeks during the summer. Melvin Pippin paints one of them, a crosswalk near Wetherby Administration Building. 17 Prepping the Hill

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lc took all sunnier A scrap of paper tumbled across the parched Diddle Arena parking lot. A lone bicyclist rode around the light poles in wide figure eights. Only a few cars clut- tered the thousands of square feet of steamy asphalt. It was May 18, 1977, just five days after the close of the spring se- mester, and the campus was virtually de- serted. Further up the Hill, however, in rooms buzzing with fluorescent lights and IBM i 1 3 4 JUST TWO DAYS BEFORE REGISTRATION, phys- ical plant workers haul registration packets from the registrar's office on the second floor of the Wetherby Administration Building to Diddle Arena. 13,521 stu- dents registered in the fall. 16 Prepping the Hill ete we eee e Selectrics, Western was readying for the beginning of the next school year. Up in Potter Hall, the housing office staff tried to ease the problems of an ex- pected dorm overflow by sending confir- mation cards to applicants in July. The cards asked for verification that the stu- dent still wanted a room in the fall. In 1976 the housing crunch hit and sent students reeling to university-provided motel rooms and placed more than 100 ona Debbie Gibson Ron Hoskins STACKS OF BOOKS surround Karen Minor, a fresh- man data processing major from Auburn, as she files volumes on the second floor of Margie Helm Library. The law library, periodical collection and tape library are housed on that floor. dorm waiting list. “It took us more by sur- prise,” housing director Horace Shrader said. “This year we saw it happening.” Still, by July 10, the 12 women’s dorms (maximum 2,920) were filled, with applica- tions for some dorms running 150 beyond capacity. Then, Shrader said, a “mad rush” to find auxiliary housing began. Later in July, the contractor renovating Florence Schneider Hall agreed to have the third and fourth floors ready for women’s housing. By Aug. 1, the four men’s dorms (capac- ity 2,058) were filled. Workers from ship- ping and receiving moved furniture into study rooms, recreation rooms, dining areas and other spare space, according to Larry Howard, purchasing director. But applications still came. Women were told they would be placed in temporary housing, and men were simply placed on a waiting list. Down the hall from the housing office, the student affairs staff spent the summer trying to make the housing squeeze easier for both students and housing. The battle plan consisted of a series of workshops in August to train resident as- sistants. They were conducted largely by the 26 dorm directors. The workshops trained the 76 new and 85 returning RAs in areas ranging from general dorm proce- Debbie Gibson =

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18 ror tine MASSES’ Three hours later, doors to the 16 dorms opened and the two weeks of long lines that students dread began. Dorm check-in, registration, buying books: day after day of single-file survival that would tarnish whatever joy there was in starting the academic year. The expected lines formed. But thanks to some planning, plus blind luck, they weren't as long as they had been the year before. Student affairs personnel and dorm di- rectors agreed that check-in went smooth- er. South Hall Director Martha Baker said, “Since we were filled, it was just a matter of checking them into their rooms. We had the system down a little better.” Confirmation cards from the housing of- fice, advance registration for freshmen and luggage carriers (provided by student af- fairs) were mentioned as having eased the big move. But the student affairs staff said the housing shortage made checking go smoothly. for the first week of school Anne Murray and Howard Bailey, assis- tant deans of student affairs, talked about problems with vacancies in the past. Val- uable time was spent moving residents to rooms with eastern windows so their plants would get more light or because the residents had skin problems or because their drapes matched the color of the room, they said. “There's a blessing in being tight,” Bai- ley said. “If you’re full, it eliminates unde- sirable flexibility. You can comfortably say, ‘No’.” Mrs. Murray and Bailey said the greatest complaint was about roommates who smoke. Only a few complained about roommates of a different race or national- ity. Whatever the complaint, Mrs. Murray said it had to wait until after Labor Day. More than 100 students who applied late for a dorm room learned about waiting, too. Eighty-eight women waited in Flor- ence Schneider Hall until space was made available. RA Lee Ann Branstetter, a Glas- gow junior, described it as hectic. “There were girls moving in while oth- ers moved out,” she said. “You didn’t know when you were moving, where you were going, who your roommate would be or what dorm you would live in. When you live for three weeks out of boxes, it’s diffi- cult.” Bonnie Troop, the Schneider director, said the last girls moved out Sept. 11. Others weren't so lucky. Housing direc- tor Horace Shrader said 120 men were placed on a waiting list and most had no place to live until vacancies came up. A dozen men lived in the Ivan Wilson House on Normal Drive; the last one moved out in mid-September. By then, the housing office had contacted and placed 70 men from the waiting list. Shrader said the oth- ers could not be contacted. A few other students lived in dorm kitchens, recreation and study rooms, and in other spare space until regular rooms NEARING THE END OF A 30-MINUTE WAIT, Ruth Dougherty rests against a cash register in the College Heights Bookstore. Although extra cashiers were hired, some students had to wait 90 minutes to pay for their supplies. Jim Burton