With forty more students than usual and sixty PROPHET researchers in camp, UMBS hosted 298 people at peak season in mid-July, 2016. According to office manager Lisa Readmond, there hadn’t been this many people in camp since the Centennial celebration in 2008.

New beds awaiting assembly in the maintenance garage.

Head of facilities Tony Sutterley said UMBS acquired 25 bunk beds from university housing in order to triple-up student and TA cabins. Camp purchased fifty new mattresses and some cabins underwent slight remodeling to accommodate more furniture.

Mealtimes were extended as well, with an extra half hour tacked on to breakfast, lunch and dinner. “The crew in the cafeteria deserves a tremendous amount of credit for making things more comfortable,” Sutterley said.

Though the cozier quarters and longer meals were the most visible aspects of camp’s efforts to accommodate more people, a lot went on behind the scenes too:

  • Camp ordered 90 new chairs for the Gates Lecture Hall and classrooms.
  • The Ballfield parking lot had more spaces, and faculty were instructed to park alongside their cabins instead of in lots on Lower Road.
  • Mid-session, you may have noticed the piles of packages near the administrative office. Many of these were for PROPHET research. According to Readmond, the office received shipments 3-4 times daily and additional packages went down to the maintenance garage.
  • The cafeteria ordered more dishes in order to have enough for everyone to use at peak mealtimes.
  • The camp nurse and stockroom manager ordered extra equipment and supplies.
  • Some courses had two TAs instead of just one.

Despite the occasional stress of these changes, both Sutterley and Readmond agree that things went smoothly, especially in terms of different parts of camp collaborating with each other.

“Overall, I think it went well,” Readmond said. “There weren’t a lot of issues and everyone got along.”