Members of the Class of 2016:
Welcome to Harvard! Residential life is a big part of the Harvard experience and Dorm Crew wants to help make your dorm a real home away from home. The Harvard Student Porter Program, commonly known as Dorm Crew, is a student-managed division of Harvard’s Facilities Maintenance Operations (FMO). Dorm Crew provides a number of services to the Undergraduate Houses, Freshman Dormitories, and the Harvard community in general. Our services include the following:
1) WE PROVIDE YOU WITH SUPPLIES AND LEND YOU EQUIPMENT. Dorm Crew is well known for supplying first-years with toilet paper (maximum 2 rolls per person per visit), but we also have many other useful supplies for your dorm room. Poster gum, fishing line for hanging pictures, and molding hooks are available in our office. Hand trucks, cleaning equipment (vacuums, brooms, dustpans, mops, and buckets), and common hand tools are also available. And we have Green Seal Certified G-Force H2O2 Multi-Surface Cleaner if you want to use it to clean your room. Additionally, bed boards can be checked out from our office for the entire year. All of the above items can be picked up during our normal business hours – weekdays from 9 AM to 5:30 PM and Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 5 PM. Our Hurlbut annex is open Fridays from 2:15 to 5PM. There is a one-hour time limit for borrowed items, and we do not check out items after 5 PM (4:30 PM on Saturdays). Students who do not return borrowed items or return them late will be subject to a stiff term bill charge. We also operate a lost and found for the Yard.
2) WE CLEAN YOUR BATHROOMS. Once every two weeks a Dorm Crew employee or a custodian from Facilities Maintenance Operations will visit each suite with a private bathroom. This person will come to clean your bathroom between the hours of 10 AM and 5:30 PM, Sun-Sat. If no one is home when they visit your suite, they have keys to enter your room. Once finished, they will leave a post-it note to let you know that they were there. You may expect these employees to be polite, professional, thorough, and respectful of your privacy. Please feel free to call or e-mail the Dorm Crew Office with your questions, comments, or concerns.
3) WE CHECK FIRE DOORS AND ROOM DOORS. Each month, a Dorm Crew employee will come by to inspect the emergency egress ways (fire doors and windows onto fire escapes) in those rooms that have them. (These must never be blocked by furniture or anything else and the emergency exit markings must be visible). In addition, we will carry out monthly inspections of the dorms for room doors that are propped open or unlocked.
4) WE CLEAN-UP. In the week before first-years arrive for the fall semester, more than 250 Dorm Crew student employees clean and prepare the freshman dorms and several of the houses for undergraduate move-in. Buildings are cleaned from floor to ceiling in just one week. Following undergraduate move-out in the spring, we employ 400 students to prepare the freshman dorms and houses for Harvard Reunion and Commencement week activities and to staff many of the events during Commencement week. Following Commencement week, we take to the dorms yet again to prepare them for incoming Summer School students. Four weeks of full-time work are available at this time.
5) WE HIRE YOU. You too can become one of our well-paid employees. Our jobs start at $12.00/hr. During the academic year, work is available in the Yard and the houses, with great flexibility in scheduling and the opportunity for promotion to management-level positions. We begin hiring for Spring Clean-Up during the spring semester. Clean-Up and Commencement week positions make for great experiences. Many enjoy this month of hard work as an excellent chance to get acquainted with fellow classmates and experience a different side of the university.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you are interested in applying for a position with us or if you would like further information about what we do. Our office is located in Weld Hall Basement, across from the Yard Operations office. You can reach us by e-mail at dorm_crew@harvard.edu or by phone at (617) 495-5569.