Spring 2020 campus move-out

How are UW-Platteville students feeling about the move-out process during this quarantine?

During the weekends of April 25 – 26 and May 1 – 3, students formerly housed in the residence halls had the opportunity to move out of their dorm rooms. This move-out process differed greatly from the normal procedures of past semesters, but the overall consensus from students was that it was successful.

Junior forensic investigation major Kaylee Underwood described the move-out process as very different but still efficient.

“[Residence life] had markers that kept people six feet away from each other during check in. They had a two-hour time frame for you to get everything out, and you couldn’t access your room until your [move-out] time or after your time,” said Underwood.

Underwood also explained that there were strict measures in place to avoid cross-contamination. There were no carts to help transport things and interaction with staff and workers was extremely limited.

“[Residence Life] didn’t come in to check you out when you were done, they did it after you had left your room/suite and they [would] email you if something was wrong. They also didn’t have people around to help carry things out. You turned your key into a drop box rather than handing it to someone,” said Underwood.

Being a junior and having moved out several times prior to this year’s move-out, Underwood admitted that the situation was weird because there wasn’t any formal checkout, which she was used to.

On the other hand, freshman business administration major Ayva Bennett has never experienced UW-Platteville’s move-out process before. Bennett admitted that the process for moving out of Wilgus Hall was a bit confusing.

“Those of us that rented out lofts had to put them all in the lounge and didn’t have to write our names or anything, so they’d have no idea who returned them and who didn’t. There was no staff there either, so questions went unanswered,” said Bennett.

Senior criminal justice major Shannon McAlpine added that in Porter Hall, things were very organized and efficient. She described the flow of moving in and out as pretty smooth.

“You were only allowed to go in the building on the side that your room was on. You were only allowed to have two people with you to move out, and [Residence Life] had every other parking space marked off” said McApine.

At Rountree Hall, sophomore psychology major Darren Klingaman said things were very different than other halls.

“The doors were already open and there was no check in or anything, we just walked up the stairs to my room, did everything we needed to do, and got everything out within an hour. They had taped-off areas so you couldn’t go to specific areas and [Residence Life] made it so there were one-way areas to keep traffic flow good,” said Klingaman.

Klingaman said he only saw three other people during his move-out process. To prevent germs from spreading, residents were told to bring their own cleaning supplies and to keep the pens they used to sign the paperwork to return their room keys.

According to the department of residence life, they will be offering additional move-out dates during the end of May. It is unclear if any changes to the move-out process will be made following feedback from the first few rounds during the past two weekends.