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Duke in Pics: No Summer Slowdown

While campus life quiets down for some over summer, a stream of events keeps University Center Activities & Events busy

Sam Watson, operations supervisor for University Center Activities & Events, sets up chairs in the Bryan Center. Photos by Stephen Schramm.
Sam Watson, operations supervisor for University Center Activities & Events, sets up chairs in the Bryan Center. Photos by Stephen Schramm.

Traffic is light in the Bryan Center on a Thursday morning in late June. The quiet corners that are usually filled with students during the school year sit empty. Tables that spill out from the handful of dining establishments on the lower level are sparsely populated. And the televisions show morning newscasts to no one.

But Sam Watson is getting things ready for a crowd that will soon fill the Bryan Center.

Watson is an operations supervisor for Conference & Event Services, which is part of University Center Activities & Events (UCAE). If there’s an event on campus, it’s the job of UCAE to handle logistics for it to take place. And while, in some ways, the pace of life on campus slows down over summer, for UCAE there’s still plenty of action to be found. From the beginning of June until the end of July, there are roughly 225 events and programs that UCAE helps with.

“It’s a full day,” Watson said. “It doesn’t slow down.”

On this day, in one of the Bryan Center’s alcoves, Watson sets up five arrow straight rows of five chairs each for a breakout session of the Alumni Admissions Forum. He measures each row to make sure there’s three feet, three inches between the front legs of one chair and the front legs of the chair behind it, magic distance to ensure the perfect amount of space between rows.

“If it works, don’t mess with it,” Watson said before moving to another part of the building to set up yet more chairs.

Here’s a look at a day in the life of Conference & Event Services and related parts of University Center Activities & Events.

Student workers Amy Bounds, left, and Maggie Szigethy answer phones in the UCAE office.Over the course of a summer, around 100 residential programs use the campus, sending hundreds of teenage campers into Duke’s residence halls, dining facilities and classroom buildings.

In order to help with the rush, Conference & Event Services bolsters its full-time staff of 12 with 16 temporary staff members, mostly students from other colleges.

Based out of a workspace in the Conference & Events office in the Bryan Center, the student workers spend their day tackling a wide variety of issues. They are the go-between for the organizers of the summer programs – who usually aren’t Duke staff members - and the entities that manage various aspects of campus life.

“They’re concentrating on the content of the program,” said Jim Hodges, director of UCAE’s Conference & Events Services. “If they have a logistics issue, they call us.”

If there is a problem with parking, billing, room keys or bed linens, the student workers are the ones who hear about it first and enlist whatever help they need in order to find a solution.

“We cover a little bit of everything,” said Jeremy Elmore, assistant director of Conference & Events Services.

Tom Whiteside sets up microphones in Penn Pavilion.During the day, Penn Pavilion is quiet. But in a few hours, the evening reception for the Alumni Admissions Forum will bring the space to life.

As part of the event, then-Dean and Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Stephen Nowicki, Associate Dean of Students and Director of Parent and Family Programs Clay Adams and Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education Linda Franzoni will take questions from the audience.

That’s what brought Tom Whiteside, a senior technician with UCAE’s Technical Services wing, here around midday. He set up six microphones – three for the panelists, two for audience questions and one at a lectern on the stage.

“This is a really nice space,” Whiteside said of Penn Pavilion. “It’s pretty much plug-and-play.”

Student worker Alyssa Hopson helps manage the lunch crowd at the Brodhead Center.Perhaps the most chaotic part of the day for the Conference & Events team is lunch. That’s when an estimated 1,500 people – campers, Duke staff and summer school students – converge on the Brodhead Center. It’s the job of the student workers to help get the groups of campers in and out of the space according to their schedules.

As part of this effort, student worker Alyssa Hopson, who is a student at the University of North Carolina, stands near one entrance, helping direct campers to where they need to go.

“Breakfast and dinner are fine, but at lunch it’s crazy,” Hopson said.

Technical Services Manager Selden Smith and Duke University Chapel Communications Manager James Todd check audio readings.Selden Smith, the manager of UCAE’s Technical Services unit, spent part of his afternoon wandering Duke University Chapel, staring at audio readings on his iPad. The Chapel’s sound system recently had an upgrade, and Smith, whose team will manage the technological side of the events that take place in the soaring gothic space, was checking to see if it needed any fine tuning.

“The equipment has been updated, but this is the second part of the process,” Smith said.