BPI2 Covid Response

The campus sidewalks no longer fill with footsteps and the buildings no longer echo with chatter.  COVID-19 has forced us to teach, learn, and work from home.  The BPI2 team has taken this unforeseen emergency and turned it into an opportunity to improve the campus and its building systems.  The two goals of this response to COVID-19 are to save energy while we can and reduce the wear and tear on our equipment.

Campus events have come to a halt, and our only operations in buildings have been infrequent essential duties.  The Building Systems team has worked with departments across campus to schedule building setbacks during breaks, but now their role has shifted to lead our efforts during the campus wide shutdown.  They’ve been able to work through a vigorous setback schedule and daily equipment operation rotations while offices and classrooms are at reduced occupancy levels.

As always, our setback gives special attention to areas of campus with sensitive material like laboratories and art galleries, even while unoccupied. Humidity alarming for art storage, mild setback points for musical instrument storage, and a separate schedule for laboratories are ways in which we preserve the work happening on our campus while we’re away.  This would not be possible without the collaboration and cooperation of the entire campus community.

The setback duration has been longer than any regularly scheduled initiative during projects or breaks, giving our team a unique insight into areas with unique needs such as Data rooms.

With this foundation phase of setbacks and equipment rotation in place, our team has been able to further our care of campus by making weather related adjustments as we head into the summer months. While the circumstances are not what anyone expected, we are working hard to make sure our campus will come out of this crisis stronger than before.  As the University plans for the upcoming fall semester, our BPI2 team is preparing our building systems for the campus to open.