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Army of workers rush to turn dorms into conference digs for summer

When the last commencement banner comes down and the 2009 graduation scene fades into a warm memory, a sense of quiet envelops the campus that only days before reverberated with the jabber of thousands of happy conversations and jubilant cell phone calls.

Even the ubiquitous campus squirrels seem to slow down their relentless hunt for discarded snacks during the lull before summer classes start up.

But high on the Hill, it's another world.

It's Transition Week, the annual six-day blitz when more than 1,000 workers transform the residence halls into hotel-like conference centers and comfortable quarters for thousands of summer guests — scientists, teachers, business people, high school cheerleaders, summer campers and junior athletes. And they are nearly here, with the first of 300 groups arriving Friday, June 19, just hours before the last of the work crews depart.

"We definitely cut it close," said Steve Dundish, area manager east for the Rooms Division in Housing and Hospitality. Dundish coordinates the work of battalions of furniture movers, painters, window cleaners, contract cleaners, housekeepers and others during Transition Week.

To achieve the look of a hotel-like conference center takes attention to detail. Out go the bunk beds and extra desks as more than 600 rooms that students shared as triples turn into more spacious doubles. In go 1,300 color TV sets, nice bed linens and, for the VIP guests, fridges stocked with soda pop and candy bars.

"This is the one week in the year when everything goes crazy because of the short time frame, but it's a lot of fun," said Dundish, a veteran of Transition Week, having survived five previously.

The majority of those at work are trades people who work for vendors and are hired by UCLA to do the muscle work of wiping away a school year's worth of daily grime, the inevitable residue of student life lived in close quarters.

"I can't really explain how much of a team effort this is," said Dundish. "It's really phenomenal. It's six days of craziness, but we love it."

Before the last student was out the door on Friday, June 12, movers had already started wrapping lounge furniture in plastic for summer storage so that 101 lounges could be converted to meeting rooms.

As the countdown continued, more than 800 people converged on the Hill, followed by 28 empty 55-foot-long trailer trucks to haul away extra furniture as well as the contents of three gymnasiums to an off-site storage facility. Scattered around the complexes were enough dollies and handcarts to move a small city. Workers labored with machines to clean 1 million square feet of soiled carpeting, painted the walls of more than 2,000 rooms, and unpacked and arranged 100,000-plus pieces of fresh bed linens.

Staff working for two vendors cleaned 3,141 rooms. Workers for three other vendors washed 5,000-plus windows inside and out. Meanwhile, another 300-plus UCLA employees were on hand to clean 800 rooms, fix hundreds of beds, encode 8,000-plus conference access cards and train for the work ahead — at the front desk, in the dining halls, in the housekeeping centers.

It's a complex movement of troops that Dundish orchestrates with some precision from his office in DeNeve Plaza. "You've got to try to stick to the schedule as best you can. You can't have the carpets cleaned before the paint is finished. And you don't want the contract cleaners to start work after the carpets have been done," he said.

This summer, UCLA will put out the welcome mat for groups large and small. More than 1,400 researchers are coming for the Genetics Society of America's international conference on C. elegans, a nematode, or roundworm, that is a model organism for research in molecular and developmental biology. About 1,000 members of the California Teachers Association will follow. And then there are the scores of high school cheerleaders and summer youth campers that descend on UCLA annually.

While the hotel and hospitality industry in Southern California has been hit hard by the economy, the conference center business at UCLA has taken a hit as well but fared better, said Jason Walley, assistant director of conference services. And the best part: The money earned goes directly into helping keep housing rates lower and staff employed year-round.

Dundish takes pride in the compliments he hears. "It's important for people to understand before they come here that this is a university setting. … If they come in with the expectation that this is a university dorm room, they're more impressed than everything. Daily maid service, TV, everything clean and freshly painted, nice linens and baskets of amenities — we try to do the best we can with what we have."