By SHANNON O. WELLS

The wild temperature fluctuations of recent weeks, along with color finally peeking out on Pitt campus trees and plants, indicate that spring has indeed sprung.

And that means Pitt groundskeeping crews are hard at work on everything from repairing damage from last winter’s deep snow and extended freezes to planting and preparing landscaping for commencement crowds and the increasingly fertile weeks to come.

Laura Zullo, vice chancellor for facilities management, updated the Campus Utilization, Planning, and Safety (CUPS) committee at its April 7 meeting on the crews’ myriad efforts as a new season says hello.

“We’re definitely in planning-and-planting mode right now. Our grounds are busy,” she said. “If you’ve been on campus, I’m sure (you’re) starting to see a little bit of color come back, which is really refreshing for me, I know, especially after this past winter. But our bulbs are blooming or have started to.”

Preparation for graduation week includes planting 21,825 pansies, tilling and seeding around sidewalks that were damaged by safety salt, transitioning equipment from snow removal to summer maintenance mode and cleaning out landscape beds and rain gardens.

“We do have some tree planting coming up … around the Cathedral (of Learning),” she added, including 20 smaller native trees that were paid for with a grant from Tree Pittsburgh.

Another 29 larger trees, funded by the sustainability fund, are being planted at least partially to replace several trees that were removed for aging and safety reasons last fall.

“We’ve had to remove a lot of trees. Not that we wanted to, but we had to, just because of decay and the age of the trees. They’re just aging out,” she explained.

The custodial staff’s transition from the snow-and-ice removal and sidewalk salting of winter involves a fair number of counteractive measures.

“Once the winter is over, now they’re working on making sure that everything’s restored, all the salt’s been removed from the entrances and all those kinds of things,” she said. “They work in stairwells to clean those things like that. Then we get involved a lot of graduation-event support.”

Commencement and camps

Although the main commencement ceremony is at Acrisure Stadium on Pittsburgh’s North Shore, crews need to prepare for several formal graduation events at buildings around campus, Zullo said, including at the new Arena and Sports Performance Center. “So, that’ll be exciting to get into that new building.”

Much preparation also goes into supporting summer camps and conferences, with a quick turnaround after students moving out. “We’re preparing for that transition, making sure we have staff and materials in place to make that turnover for our guests to come in,” she said of the 57 camps and conferences scheduled this summer.

Prep also includes clearing out all manner of things students leave behind.

“We have to bag, tag them, keep them. We can’t just throw them away, so we have to do all that — and then clean the residence halls and make them ready for our guests,” Zullo said. “That really happens almost immediately … we’re in there and getting those buildings prepared.”

Lamonica Wiggins, entrepreneurship librarian, mentioned that someone from the Office of Sustainability told her many students leave behind valuable items like toasters and mini refrigerators.

“Things that can be resold,” she said. “They usually will collect them and … they do a rummage sale each year so students can buy these leftover mini fridges.”

She’s referring to the former Clutter for a Cause, now rebranded by Pitt Sustainability as “Move Out, Clean Out,” noted Laura Jellum in Pitt’s Department of Finance and Operations, after the CUPS committee meeting.

“That’s the event where students can donate their items from their dorm room instead of throwing them away. Those items go to (student-run thrift store) Thriftsburgh and other nonprofits across Pittsburgh,” Jellum said.

In other post commencement operations, Zullo said “general summer work” involved working “really closely” with Business, Hospitality and Auxiliary Services to complete summer maintenance. “We do carpet cleaning, painting and other, just general repairs or maintenance over the summer (when) those buildings are generally vacant.”

Responding to Wiggins’ question about concerns regarding mice and trash in Bendum Hall, Zullo suggested first contacting a building facility manager.

“If it’s continuing, please let me know. We’ll hunt it down (and) make sure that we were addressing it,” she said. “I know this time of year is sometimes a little bit worse, especially when it’s cold outside. They look for a warm place to go, so that hopefully will be getting a little bit better.

“We don’t want those unwelcome guests, so we’ll do our best to try to take care of that,” Zullo added. “If you have specifics, feel free to message me with those.”

Moving on to other items, CUPS Chair David Salcido, assistant professor of emergency medicine, noted that his tenure on the committee expires in 2027, so he wants to have a co-chair in place before the next committee chair is chosen.

“I really love serving on the committee. (It’s been) great working with you,” he said. “I really do care about the University, so this committee is a way for me to really do that. … It’s important I do have a co-chair so that somebody can learn the ropes.”

The job is “not particularly difficult,” he noted, “because our wonderful liaisons make it really easy. They’re always responsive. It’s just a matter of coming up with things to talk about, and there’s always stuff to talk about.”

Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.

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