Physical Plant
March 19, 2014
Steve Shantz, a do-it-yourself kind of guy
Physical Plant worker taps maple syrup and raises ducks “Chick-a-dee-dee-dee!” The bird whistles from somewhere in the trees. Down by his woodpile, Steve Shantz moves behind a sweet cloud of steam rising from his maple sugar “rocket burners.” Steve Shantz boils the maple sap he tapped to make maple syrup. This is the second year Shantz, who works in the systems department at Goshen College’s Phys Plant, has made maple syrup on a large scale, collecting sap by the barrelful from sugar maples around town. He upgraded his equipment this year with the rocket burners and a system of pans...
March 19, 2014
New house one step closer to master plan
If Goshen College has learned one fact about buying a house in the last 15 years, it’s that you need patience – lots and lots of patience. The college just bought the last house in a line of seventeen houses along College Avenue as part of a long-term master plan to open the campus up to the community, a process which has taken more than 15 years. The plan is to eventually demolish the houses, which are located between 9th and 12th Streets; in short term, the college will use them as rentals. Jim Histand, VP of finance, helped to...
February 12, 2014
Grounds Crew Plows a Record Number of Days
Imagine going to work 22 days in a row. This is a reality for the Kennard Martin, Willie Deegan and Craig Johnson, whose jobs have become a round-the-clock responsibility. Martin, Deegan and Johnson are the three members of the Goshen College grounds department, and are responsible in the winter for keeping campus sidewalks clear of snow and ice. Due to continuous amounts of heavy snow and ice, the department has worked a record number of 22 days straight since the beginning of the semester. “We get called in about 3:30 in the morning,” said Johnson, department supervisor. “We’re supposed to...
February 12, 2014
When Snow Falls Late, Some Wake Up Early
“When most students think of an on-campus job, they don’t think of waking up at 5:30 in the morning, when it’s below zero outside, and working,” said Craig Johnson, the new supervisor of the snow shoveling crew for Goshen College campus. Every time a heavy snow hits, a group of between four and nine students gets up early to clear the sidewalks and entries around campus buildings. This year, they have worked through “probably the most difficult winter I can remember,” said Johnson. A typical snow morning would look something like this: Mr. Johnson calls his list of nine students...
October 22, 2013
To swim in the English sea
Russian chatter spills from the worker’s lounge in the Goshen College Physical Plant. Four custodians from Ukraine gather at the day’s 6 a.m. start, waiting for their cleaning crews and relaxing in the ease of their mother tongue. Here they can take a break from the effort of communicating in English. For most students at the college, Study-Service Term is the longest time they will be completely immersed in a new language, but others on campus grapple daily with the twists and turns of the English language. Valentyna Naumchuk’s face relaxes when she talks in Russian with Svitlana Meyta and...
March 5, 2010
How many Mennonites does it take to change a light bulb?
Goshen College will soon discover the answer to an age-old question: How many Mennonites does it take to change a light bulb? The Physical Plant is exploring more energy efficient lighting in an ongoing effort to make the college a “greener” facility. Four or five energy efficient light bulbs are being tested along the sidewalks of the campus. The Physical Plant has yet to make a decision on the matter. In the next few weeks “we will have a sense how the new bulbs will operate in the cold,” said Galen Bontrager, the system supervisor of the Physical Plant. The...