Custodians, the unsung heroes of UMaine

Landscape of Dunn Hall

Cheryl St. Louis has been a member of the janitorial staff at UMaine for 16 years. She is responsible for upkeep in the entirety of Dunn Hall (photographed above), which consists of five floors.

St. Louis has been married for 13 years and currently resides in the town of MIlford. Throughout her adolescence, she attended Old Town schools in the area. Her job title is Custodian. Some of St. Louis’ main responsibilities include sanitizing all five floors in Dunn Hall. She was assigned responsibility for the whole building six years ago.

St. Louis arrives on campus around 4p.m. She starts by collecting trash and recycling from every single classroom. Then, she starts cleaning, keeping track of each room that needs to be tended to using a white board. St. Louis is required to wipe down all of them.

She compared it to cleaning a large house. It is necessary to ensure that windows and doors are all locked before she leaves for the night. Some of St. Louis’ other tasks include vacuuming, dusting, sweeping, and mopping.

St. Louis unfortunately does not receive appropriate compensation in accordance with her nightly efforts. She was previously assigned three out of the five floors and was provided with assistance in cleaning the remaining two.

Juanita Prescot, who is Custodian of BLANK, used to help out with the first floor and basement of Dunn Hall, but is currently no longer able to do so with her own workload. The University of Maine System lacks proper funding to hire a second employee that could assist St. Louis. She has also not received any increase of pay since taking on those extra duties.

“We’re so short staffed. I don’t know how people are getting by, nobody wants to work nowadays. I did have some help a while ago,” St. Louis said.

Regardless, St. Louis did express an appreciation for the building itself and those who visit. She considers it to be the most rewarding aspect of her job,

“I do like this building, I like the people in this building. Like I said, I’ve been here 16 years, there’s new ones that come and go. The students are all really great so I do like it over here,” said St. Louis.

She described her relations with the people in Dunn as having an open line of communication. Professors frequently reach out to her when they have a problem, as she is capable of either solving it or steering them in the right direction.

“Judith Rosenbaum she teaches on Wednesday night. Sometimes I’ll bring in something on a Wednesday night or I’ll just bring it in, put it in the lunchroom and say ‘Help yourself -Cheryl’,” St. Louis said.

With a large portion of Dunn Hall being devoted to the nursing program, St. Louis is expected to effectively sanitize all of the classrooms as if it were a hospital. It mainly consists of tiled and hardwood floors.

The building is open 12 hours, meaning that her window of cleaning without interruption is very small, especially without help. This was supposed to be a temporary inconvenience until the University found somebody to soften the load. However, six years later, the responsibility still falls on St. Louis and St. Louis alone.

“I like cleaning because it keeps me busy and time goes by. I had the fourth floor, third floor and second floor. I could keep up, I had everything done”

Custodians at UMaine also receive graded evaluations. St. Louis explained that she and Juanita received very high scores when working together, even in the midst of wintertime when there was the issue of salt, snow and muddy boots coming in and out. A person visits to inspect the building and then provide feedback based on their findings. It is very tedious as they will even check the windowsills for dust.

“I don’t think it’s fair that somebody goes around and inspects the building when you’ve got the whole building and you can’t get it all,” St. Louis said.

She has many interests outside of work, but does not have ample time to pursue those passions as there are very high expectations of her at UMaine.

“I like to garden, grow vegetables. I did a lot of canning, ice fishing, camping, baking, I love to bake,” said St. Louis.

She is still expected to work while students and staff are on winter, spring and summer breaks. It proves to be the only time she can clean without any interruptions. Her vacation days are accumulated over time. UMS needs to do their part in order to allocate funding so that St. Louis and her colleagues are not left to take on an excessive amount of labor.