(soft upbeat music)
- Hi, Lafayette family.
It is time for another episode of "Need A Lift?"
I can't wait for you to meet our next guest.
So we're gonna hop in the cart and...
Wait, we're hopping in the cart,
but my guest is already here. - Hi, Nicole.
- Hi, Dave. - Yeah, I was just
checking out the cart.
It seems like you've been putting a lot
of miles on this cart.
- I might have put a few.
- Oh, yeah.
- All right, you wanna go get some coffee?
- Absolutely. - All right, let's do this.
(soft upbeat music)
- So Dave, I'm very excited that you're my next guest,
and it's the perfect time to have you in the cart
because it is beautiful.
- It is.
It's a beautiful spring day today.
- It's a beautiful spring day.
And as you know, as somebody who I see every day,
I've been waiting for my first Pennsylvania spring,
because my Pennsylvania winter was a little longer
than maybe I thought it would be.
So it is great to see campus
with all these blossoms and trees and everything else.
I wanna talk about you for a second.
How many years have you been Lafayette family?
- I've been with the Lafayette family
for almost 28 years now.
- [Nicole] Wow.
It's a long time.
- It has been a long time,
but it's been a very enjoyable time.
- So I don't wanna embarrass you,
but I have a story about you.
I went to go see Arthur and Barbara Rothkopf
with Bill, my husband,
and we were talking about
how much we love this Lafayette family.
And Barbara Rothkopf said,
"You know who my favorite person on campus is."
And I said, "Who?"
And she said, "Dave."
I said, "He's our favorite person too."
So you've been loved
on this campus... - Yeah.
- For a long time, my friend.
For a long time. - I've been fortunate
to have great presidents to work under, for sure.
- [Nicole] All right, you ready for some coffee?
- Yes, I am. - We're hitting Mojo.
- All right, very good. - So here we go.
(Nicole laughs)
How you doing?
- Hi, how are you?
- Doing well.
- I'm Lily.
- Hi, Lily.
It's good to see you. - Here is yours.
- This is mine. - Thank you, Lily.
- This is Dave's. - This is for Dave.
- All right. - Thank you very much.
- All right, thank you so much.
Have a great day. - Have a good day.
- So when you think about your time, 28 years,
how much has this place changed?
A lot,
yes?
- It has changed a lot.
I remember my first year here,
when we would have Commencement coming up,
and how we would get ready for Commencement.
And at that time, we maybe had about 10 different beds.
That's about all that we would put flowers in.
And then going into about my 10th year is when
we really increased the amount of flowers.
It seemed that more people were asking
for more color around campus,
and it was amazing how flowers influenced
a lot of our students and parents and families.
That's one thing that we hear a lot
of around campus, is how beautiful it is,
and it reminds a lot of the families of their homes.
- Well, it's funny you say that,
because we had 1,000 people here last Sunday
for Admitted Student Day.
And then I actually, right before I came to give you a lift,
I was over meeting with a student
and a mom from Los Angeles.
And the first thing out their mouths was,
'This place is just gorgeous.'
And so I do think environment matters, right?
I know people think like, oh, you know, it's about
you know, all sorts of ways of building community,
but one way of building community is making sure
that the environment lifts us all up, right?
And it's something that we can all share in and enjoy.
So tell me about kind of what,
when you think about your responsibilities,
the Quad is obviously the heart of campus.
What makes you nervous?
Is it trees?
Is it hard to maintain?
Is it easy to maintain?
Tell us about the Quad.
- The Quad itself is a little tricky to maintain.
As we can see today with all the students on
the grounds area, and looking across the Quad right now,
I could see one of our grounds guys prepping the areas.
What he is doing is he's putting top soil and seed down
so the seed germinates before Commencement.
So we have a few more weeks yet to prep all these areas.
So with the students on here, it makes a lot difficult,
but one of the funniest parts is we have sprinkler systems
on the Quad, and at times they go on
when they shouldn't, and the students aren't ready,
and they actually have some water fun.
(laughs)
- Well when I think about, you know,
the heart of campus,
I think everybody thinks about the Quad.
It's also a place where, again,
I think we do community well, right?
So I'm so excited.
I don't know how many years
we've had Commencement down at Fisher, but we're bringing Commencement back to the Quad.
I'm so excited about this.
So we will have Commencement right here on May 21st.
- It's so good to hear
that it's coming back to the Quad,
because I believe, too,
this is a place for gathering,
and you couldn't ask for a perfect, better environment
than up here with all the trees and all the shrubs blooming,
especially this time of year again.
Springtime is one of the most beautiful times of year
on Lafayette's campus.
- [Nicole] Tell me about where we're at?
- So Nicole, what I wanted to share with you today was
this path that we're on right now,
this brick pathway that goes around the Quad,
before that was introduced to the campus,
this used to be called Quad Drive,
and actually there used to be cars that were parked
along this exact roadway here.
And during that time,
we knew that we were making changes,
and we were concerned about some of our mature trees.
And these trees right here
to our right here are called Japanese Zelkova trees.
So during that time of renovation,
we had to prep these trees prior
to digging up all this roadway.
So what the College had done at that moment was,
we had a company come in and had a tree spade
go around all these Zelkova trees and cut the roots.
So that way, when the excavator was digging,
he wouldn't be tearing the roots away from the tree itself.
So those are types of measures that we took
to save these beautiful trees that we have on campus here.
- Well, you know, it's interesting. I think, again,
sometimes when we're running around so fast
we can take things for granted.
But the beauty of this campus
and the time it takes to maintain it
and make sure that these trees are healthy.
I know when we first got to campus,
we had a couple of sick trees
at the President's House, and it was sad to see them go.
But, you know, maintaining this environment
is something that we have to really talk about.
- Absolutely.
- Always renewal, right?
- Yeah.
- So while we're talking about renewal
and things you do every time,
can we do a speed round,
because this is something I do with...
- Sure. - All my lift guests.
All right, you ready?
OK.
Favorite word?
- 'Smile.'
That's a good word, Dave. - Yeah.
- I like that word. - 'Cause come on,
let's face it. - That's a great word.
- Especially the last two years,
how many smiles were you able to see when wearing masks?
- That's right.
No, I endorse that one. - Yeah.
- Especially since we can do this episode
not masked up.
All right, so 'smile.'
Favorite song?
This is a hard one, I know.
- Yeah.
- How about this?
Do you have a favorite artist?
- I do.
OK, so who's your favorite artist?
- Eric Clapton.
- There we go.
All right.
And then final speed-round question.
When I say 'Lafayette,' the first thought is?
- Beautiful.
- Here we go.
Nice answer.
I agree.
Beautiful.
Beautiful grounds, beautiful people.
- Absolutely. - All right.
And we've got a little bit of construction
going on in campus.
But I think one of the things I'm excited about is
we think about how we can do this better.
We're really gonna create a master plan,
and when I think about a master plan,
I think about how important you're gonna be in that process
that we get the environment right,
right? - Yes.
- That we, you know, protect this beauty,
that we think about where we're building and how, you know,
we can, especially while we're sitting here
on the corner of McCartney and High,
how we can welcome the College Hill neighbors
in better, right?
It's nice that campus feels like a home, right?
I think I use that word a lot,
'Welcome home.'
I think it's really important that you play a huge role
in this, Dave, for making this place feel like home.
So thank you. - Oh, thank you.
You're welcome.
We as groundskeepers here on campus,
our team really enjoys what we have to do here
to make it a friendly, safe campus for the community,
and it does, it takes teamwork.
It's not just one person.
It takes a lot of individuals to make this campus
as beautiful as it is.
(soft upbeat music)