I am really glad that I went to the Rose Café with Tony, manager of the Cornell Facilities Management Department. What really resonated with me at this talk was how much Tony cares about making Cornell a home for its students. He emphasized that his number one priority and the number one priority of his staff and all the workers here on West Campus is to make sure that students are safe, healthy, and happy, and hearing about the great lengths that he and the staff go to making sure this goal is achieved really changed my perspective. I, of course, at times get frustrated with the state of the bathrooms or the too small shower curtains, but everyday I also chat with the staff and am reminded of how kind and caring they are. However, for some reason, I rarely seemed to connect that the kind and caring people that I see everyday are working to make sure that the dorms are as comfortable as possible and would appreciate feedback about the things that concern me about the dorm or bathroom. They would undoubtedly then do everything they could to address those concerns. Essentially, Tony reminded me that Facilities Management wants to hear what we are concerned about, and I definitely feel more at home on West Campus knowing how dedicated Facilities Management is to making sure that we are thriving, safe, and happy with our experience living at Cornell. The amount of people that care about our concerns and look out for our well-being, from GRFs to Facilities Management, to Professor Blalock, to Dr. Anthony, really illuminates the extent of Rose’s commitment to fostering community.

After a good deal of discussion about bathroom issues, one student brought up how, at her old school, there was a column in the newspaper about bathroom stories and complaints and explained that it was a really effective, humorous, and non-threatening way of getting everyone on the same page about bathroom etiquette. I was thinking that perhaps if every floor had some type of large dry-erase board or chalkboard, people could anonymously write some of their concerns or qualms about the way their floormates seem to be using the bathroom in a lighthearted way. Also, this board could also be used to communicate some preferences to facilities—like how one student pointed out that putting the trashcan underneath the hand dryer caused the trash to blow all over the bathroom floor.