Matthew J Grief
This article was originally published on the SWACUHO Blog in October 2022 but lost during a website migration. It is republished here with permission of the author.
Some of you might remember the political satire dark comedy Netflix put out about a comet coming to destroy earth and the government urged people not to look up. Some of you might find that many of your students don’t look up at people in the eye but spend most of their time looking down at a phone. Many people do much of their communication these days looking down and not looking up, and many people do much of their driving looking down at their phone which is a whole other topic for another day.
You are probably asking, what does it matter whether I am looking down, as long as I am doing my job? Well, sometimes you do have to look up and that is important when you are dealing with housing on a university campus. People for years have asked me why I walk around the housing facilities so much, and when I do, why am I always looking up? That is a multi-part question that might require a bit of explanation, but while I have your attention looking down reading this, I might as well share.
As a Senior Housing Officer, and even before I held that position, I was very concerned about how my housing areas looked. I wanted to make sure no matter where I worked, the presentation of our housing program would be top notch. Damaged screens, trash on balconies or on the grounds, blinds broken and dangling, green pools, filthy breezeways, and dirty windows are just a few of the things that would drive me nutty.
One thing I have practiced for over 30 years is that I am not too important to pick up a piece of trash. Now if it was nasty, I would find some way to retrieve it without touching it with my bare hands, but I wanted to set the example of how the housing area should look. This has continued to be one of my key goals as I walk around the housing complexes, and at times I am looking down to see the trash on the ground, so while there are good reasons you should look down, you should also look up regularly.
Why look up? I’m glad you asked. Most problems, both inside and outside, can be found by looking up. When evaluating an area, I always start at the top by looking at the roof (if I can see it) to see if the shingles or roofing is still intact. I then work my way down to the facia of the building and all the nooks and crannies, to make sure we have no rotting wood or holes that little critters can sneak into. And yes, we have had everything from possums to squirrels living in attics.
As I am visually working my way down the exterior of a building, whether brick or stucco or some other exterior covering, I look for cracks. These cracks could show where you are beginning to have a foundation problem. As your eyes work their way down, —you can see screen issues, broken windows, balcony issues, and even erosion issues which could have a significant impact on the structure.
This simple practice can be done on the inside of buildings where you can see if there is a possible water leak in ceiling tiles, cracks in sheetrock, moist discolored walls, door frames rubbing, toilet leaks, all the way down to torn carpet or flooring cracks.
As you can see, it is very important to look up because your problems that start up high, will likely affect so many more people below and the building itself. Don’t think you are a professional housing staff member who can’t do this. Housing staff are usually the first one to see problems, especially if you don’t have maintenance staff regularly in your facilities. Anyone can do this if they just look up!
Matthew J Grief
Associate Vice President for Student Affairs
The University of Texas at Dallas
