Each fall, as approximately 12,000 people move into residence halls and apartments, a massive team of University Housing professionals stands ready to fulfill its mission of creating “communities that transform student lives.”
 
A key part of the Housing team is perhaps the easiest to take for granted – ever present, but often overlooked.
 
Building service workers – commonly referred to as “BSWs” – perform essential work each day, ensuring residence halls are clean, functional, pleasant places to call home. That’s obvious.
 
But the impact BSWs make often goes beyond the job description, affecting students in significant and surprising ways.
 
Kayla Reid, Ty Weidenburner and Sandy Willfong are a few shining examples of building services staff whose work has positively impacted students’ lives in ways they never imagined when they applied to work for University Housing.

Building service staff members (left to right): Kayla Reid, Sandy Willfong and Ty Weidenburner

“Their Family Away from Home”

Reid began working in University Housing in 2016 as a BSW. Coming into the job, she didn’t realize how closely she would interact with students.

“As a building service worker, when you’re cleaning, you see students literally every day,” Reid said.

As Weidenburner describes it, BSWs interact with students “every day, all day” because of the nature of their jobs. “We’re inside the [buildings], inside their living spaces. We’re cleaning their hallways. We’re pulling their trash.” 

She said BSWs often become “the go-to people” when students have questions or need things like having their beds lofted.  

When Reid started, she would simply say hi to students each day, and many of them warmed up quickly and began sharing their ups and downs with her.

“You never know what students are going through,” Reid said, “and sometimes they kind of open up to you.”

She said students will occasionally admit to her that they’re feeling homesick. They often talk about where they’re from, their classes and their day-to-day lives.

Because students are away from home, the regular, often reassuring presence of the BSWs sometimes makes them a student’s “person away from home,” Reid said, and she doesn’t mind that role.

“Making them feel safe in that environment” is a priority for Reid as she works around students. “I like being that person that people can go to whenever. … A lot of times the building services people are their family away from home.”

Reid said the students are very appreciative of the work BSWs do, and that means a lot to her.

She was recently promoted to a foreperson role, which necessitated her moving to an office in the Illinois Street Residence Halls, after previously working in Taft-Van Doren, then Barton and eventually Nugent Hall.

At ISR, Reid ran into a student she had become friends with at Nugent, and the student’s face lit up as soon as they saw each other.

She said it was nice to catch up with the student, and it made her feel proud to know she’d left such a positive impression on her.

“These are the moments I cherish, because you can tell it really helped her get through the year,” Reid said.

There When You Need Them

As one of the top ranked public universities in the nation and a global leader in research, students come to the University of Illinois knowing they’ll receive a world-class education. 

Along the way, they may also learn some basic life skills, thanks in part to BSWs like Weidenburner.

One day while making her rounds, Weidenburner detected an unusual odor as she came into a laundry room.

“You could smell laundry soap kind of burning,” she said. Upon closer inspection, she realized a student put their clothes and some liquid detergent into a dryer, thinking it was a washing machine.

“They had never done laundry before,” Weidenburner said, and only had “a vague idea how to do it.”

She helped them get their clothes out and offered some basic tips: Laundry 101.

“Of course, it was a mess in the dryer, so it took a while to clean out,” Weidenburner said, but she got it done, and the student appreciated the assistance.

She said it’s not uncommon to find students who need a little guidance, and she’s always happy to assist.

“If you’re in the laundry room and you see a student holding their laundry, just kind of looking around, like, ‘I don’t know what to do,’ I usually ask them, ‘Do you need some help,’ and they’ll say yes,” she said. “You wanna help these kids out as much as you can.”

In her nearly 19 years working in University Housing, Weidenburner has also come across students in more desperate situations.

While working in Florida Avenue residence halls, she once found a student on the bathroom floor having a seizure. She immediately called 911, and the operator gave her instructions on checking the student’s pulse and breathing and how to hold her head until the ambulance arrived. 

“Luckily, she was fine,” Weidenburner said. “She had the flu, and she was anemic. But that was probably my worst fear. Nobody wants to see a student in trouble.”

“Keep the Positivity Going”

The warmth, caring and compassion Reid and Weidenburner have shown students goes beyond their basic job descriptions, and they’ve both been recognized for their outstanding work.

About a year ago, Reid was approached by her “boss’s boss,” who praised her work and encouraged her to apply for a foreperson position.

She was hesitant at first and didn’t think it was something she wanted, but her supervisors told Reid they saw positive qualities in her and complimented her attitude and work ethic.

“They saw the potential in me that I did not see in myself, so they kind of pushed me towards this role,” Reid said.

Building Service Foreman Sandy Willfong can relate to Reid’s initial hesitancy to apply.

Willfong started as a BSW with University Housing in 2000. She applied for a foreperson position 13 years later, but she had to be persuaded to do so because she knew it would mean less daily interaction with students.

“It was kind of a hard decision to make for me because I really liked what I did,” Willfong said. “Scott Hall was my start building. I spent 11 years here in this building. I really didn’t want to leave it. And finally, somebody talked me into taking another position. … But it was really hard because I really liked working with the students, and I enjoyed my time here.”

She had one student who gave her a hand-made afghan as a gift at the end of the school year.  

“You get those experiences where you get to know them more one-on-one,” Willfong said. “They talk to you more as … not that you’re their parent, but a good friend that they can bounce off stuff when they’re feeling down or they’re feeling stressed about exams coming up and stuff like that. They get to know you, and you talk to them on a day-to-day basis, and they start to open up and rely on you being there.”

She said it started with just saying hello and being pleasant, and from there, the students “all talked to me, and so I got to know a lot of students. They would come back the next year, if they moved out of the [residence halls], just to come see me, and you know it was a nice feeling that they would come back just to see you.”

Willfong supervises a team of BSWs, including Weidenburner, whom she calls a “wonderful, well-rounded employee.” She praised her work ethic and drive to go “the extra mile to take care of her areas.”

First as a BSW and now as a supervisor, Reid tries to bring positive energy to the workplace to help set the tone.

“I just love making people happy,” she said. “So I just kind of make sure that my energy is always high when it comes to interactions, because I would want that for me, too, when I’m going through a dark time, just to interact with people with high energy and positive mindsets.”

Willfong said BSWs take pride in the residence halls and thinks people could walk into even the older halls and find them looking “polished and clean.”

“They have an important role in taking care of the buildings and taking care of the students,” she said.

Willfong believes bringing a positive attitude and friendly personality to the workplace is essential for the building services team. Reid and Weidenburner seem to embody those qualities, and the students are in good hands because of employees like them.

“Whether it’s taking care of the building, whether it’s taking care of something at the resident level – just making sure everybody’s comfortable and everybody’s happy – that’s what I like to see,” Willfong said. “I like to work with people, and I think it’s good to keep the positivity going.”

Editor’s Note: After interviews were conducted and during the production of this story and video, it was announced that Ty Weidenburner had been promoted to a building service foreperson position.