Finished finals? Check. Removed all belongings from your residence hall? Check. Swept down the bathroom with Clorox wipes and half-heartedly vacuumed? Check. All that’s left is to turn in your keys to an RA or AC, have them do a walk-through of your room and sign a form. With that done, you’ve successfully moved out of your residence hall, right?
But moving out is a bit more complex than simply completing steps A, B and C. It’s a choreographed dance among Residence Life, Facilities Management and every student living on campus.
Recycling unwanted furniture and other items
Students with unwanted items can recycle them in two fenced-off areas, one in Lot B, between Flynn and Morrison halls, and the second between Cretin and Grace halls. These drop-off areas are for Junk King, whose services St. Thomas began using last year.
This is where students can bring larger items such as chairs, couches, lamps and futons to be reused, recycled or evaluated by Junk King. Any large item a student is not taking with them – even if it is inoperable or broken – should go in these fenced areas if it does not fit in the trash. The recycling areas will be taken down May 20.
Goodwill boxes also will be located in the fenced areas for smaller items students would like to donate, such as household goods or clothing. Residence halls will feature containers to collect unwanted canned or boxed goods for the local food shelf.
The fenced recycling areas are walk-up service only, require a student ID and will not accept items from off-campus students.
Students should follow the university’s example and consider reusing, recycling or donating before putting an item into the trash. Some St. Thomas daily practices include sending garbage away for waste incineration to create energy (preventing St. Thomas trash from ever going to a landfill), sending food waste to hog farms, and shipping recycling, old technology and other e-waste to their respective plants.
Walters Recycling and Refuse takes St. Thomas waste to Advanced or HERC, while Eureka receives and sorts St. Thomas recycling into 15 categories for reuse. Barthold Inc. and Second Harvest send scraps from the View to hog farm programs, and Tech Dump recycles e-waste. St. Thomas partners with these and with Shred Right, UPS and Books for Africa to promote its mission of sustainability and eco-friendly living.
It’s important for students to help keep up these practices at the end of the school year. St. Thomas has a goal to recycle 50 percent of its waste by 2018 and 60 percent by 2020.
Move-out should be completed by the evening of May 20, as Public Safety will not let anyone on campus for move-out the Saturday of graduation.
Parking restrictions
To provide enough space for resident students, Lots A, B and U will be reserved for students moving out Wednesday, May 18, to Friday, May 20; also, portions of Lots G, U and O will have designated parking for move-out. The reserved move-out spaces will have a one-hour limit. If you need to remain on campus following move-out, please move your vehicle to the south campus.
Trailers and larger trucks cannot be accommodated in lots and are not permitted on campus.
As always, there is no parking permitted, under any circumstance, in fire lanes, drive aisles, in front of dumpsters, on the grass or other restricted areas to load vehicles during move-out. Vehicles in serious violation of parking policies may be ticketed or towed at the owner’s expense.
Those who usually park in the above reserved areas for move-out are encouraged to park in Anderson Parking Facility or Lots O and M on the south campus. (Please remember the entrance to the south campus surface lots is located on Summit Avenue.)
As part of the move-out, summer parking began Friday, May 13. The gates to the Anderson and Morrison parking facilities are raised, and permits will not be required to park in the red and yellow lots and the St. Thomas resident lots. Other restrictions will remain in place, including overnight parking. During the week, overnight guests should be directed to either the Morrison Ramp, the Anderson Parking Facility or Lot U. Weekend overnight parking will continue as usual.
