The summer semester is halfway through, and campus communities are looking back on progress since the spring move-out following COVID-19. With its design studios now vacant of their usual activity, the NC State College of Design faculty and staff are reflecting on the unique move-out strategy last spring.

JoeM. McCoy, director of operations: information technology, facilities and laboratories at the College of Design, talked about the sudden shift to move out from the studios.

“When everyone was sent home from spring break and never came back, we hadn’t really prepared them to take all of their stuff because we didn’t know when they would be able to get back in,” McCoy said. “We didn’t know what was going on with the virus at that point.”

Design studios are an integral part of the College of Design. According to McCoy, every studio major is assigned a studio desk to utilize. Every studio assigned is categorized by their respective design concentration and utilized for both courses and projects. Students have access to studios 24/7, which feature university-provided equipment such as computer clusters and both laser and plotter printers.

Drew Tiedeman, a fourth-year studying environmental design, talked about how important studios are for students.

“We’re usually in there a lot because we collaborate in our studio classes a lot,” Tiedeman said. “Our professor comes and that’s three days a week for like four hours.”

According to Tiedeman, there were two move-outs during the spring 2020 semester due to COVID-19. The first move-out was for students to pick up any essential materials needed for the remainder of the spring semester. Students were instructed to arrive between March 18-19 during an allotted time issued by last name. Students were also told a complete move out was not required, as administration would later create a move-out date for remaining items. 

Christine Klocke, director of communications and marketing at the College of Design, talked about administering information to students regarding move-out dates.

“We shared the initial email from Associate Dean Sharon Joines that went out on March 17 to our students, alerting them that we realized that you would be unable to take care of your belongings from the studio at this time,” Klocke said. “But you would have access to your studio space towards the end of the semester, so we were trying to be proactive about communicating with the students when we knew that we had the intent to getting them back to the space.” 

Similar to the final move-out offered by University Housing, the College of Design implemented several rules and regulations in order to finish studio move-out. According to McCoy, the College of Design utilized an online appointment system similar to University Housing’s. Check-in tables were available for students to drop off returning items, and students were relegated to only bringing one helper to aid with move-out.  

“We set up several days worth of appointments so that we wouldn’t have a bunch of people in the room at the same time,” McCoy said. “So we tried to limit it to three or four people in the big studios at a time, and once we made those appointments, we were able to kinda just be there, welcome them, sign them up, send them in the right direction so they weren’t crossing paths, and it worked out pretty well.” 

The second move-out implemented more social distancing guidelines recommended by the University. According to Tiedeman and McCoy, students were encouraged to bring their own personal protective equipment and were told to adhere to distancing measures such as staying six feet apart. Pathways were also directed in order to minimize interaction also. 

Overall feedback for the studio move-out was positive. According to McCoy and Klocke, while the College of Design did not do a specific evaluation asking about student experience with move-out, most of the received feedback was positive. 

“I know that everyone was wearing gloves. Everyone was wearing a mask,” Tiedeman said. “So really, the whole thing that I mentioned earlier about how you had to take one path in and one path out? That was pretty nice, especially since there’s like two outside doors leading to the studio.”

For more information, visit the NC State College of Design’s website.