Campus Facilities Work Hard to Keep IWU Beautiful

Indiana Wesleyan University’s grounds crew is in charge of 125 acres of landscaping across campus. The ten facility grounds crew workers do the care.

The grounds crew does more than just take care of the grass and flower beds. These individuals also do greenhouse management, irrigation, sidewalks, snow and ice removal, bee hive maintenance, design and waste and recycling.

Christi Wolgemuth, a flower and landscape bed specialist with the IWU grounds crew, emphasizes the attention to detail that the grounds department has across campus.

“A lot of people don’t realize how much goes into the process of the flowers. We are already getting ready to get a flower order ready for next year. We look at what we liked, what we didn’t like and new flowers that are coming out on the market,” Wolgemuth said.

Kenna Smith, a student desk worker for facilities, has been able to see the behind-the-scenes work for the past three years, being in charge of work orders, labor hours and computer work.

“You walk around campus and see all the flowers and landscaping, and it’s obviously well taken care of. The workers with the grounds crew do a great job at what they do and put a lot of hours into maintaining all the flowers and the landscaping,” Smith said.

Maintaining the beauty across the campus is something that many students don’t notice until the flowers are blooming and the grass is green. The grounds crew covers many jobs, fulfilling many responsibilities.

“(The biggest thing people don’t know is) the scope of what we do and all the hats we wear,” Wolgemuth said. “There are a lot of jobs that sometimes go unseen. That’s mainly to us working behind the scenes.”

Addy Coates, a student worker for the project crew, works with planting, maintaining and watering flowers across campus. Coates has continued to come back to work with facilities for three years because of the group of people.

“The community that we have together as a department makes us different. We care about each other a lot, and it’s more than a job,” Coates said. “That’s why some of these students keep coming back here; because they love the environment, they love the workers and it’s just fun to be here.”

The facilities’ grounds crew prides themselves in providing impressive work for the campus.

Much of this work goes unseen by students and faculty but is intentional and thorough to give the campus the best look possible.