Michigan State University, a valued ISSA member organization, does not act its age. Walk into one of its 27 residence halls on a fall morning, and the floors shine, the dining equipment runs, and a building that has sheltered generations of its athletic teams, the Spartans, looks ready for generations more. What students rarely see is everything that happened while they slept.

Founded in 1855 in East Lansing, Michigan State University (MSU) opened as a pioneer land-grant college and became the model for other land-grant institutions, including being the first in the country to teach scientific agriculture. The university has grown into one of the largest campuses in the nation, spanning roughly 5,200 acres and enrolling more than 51,000 students who come from 139 countries, all 50 states, and every one of Michigan’s 83 counties. About 16,000 of those Spartans live on campus year-round, across some 5.6 million square feet of residence halls and apartments.

Keeping that living environment running falls to people most students never meet. Two of them are Charles Stephens, associate director for residence hall services, and Marque Black, associate director for university apartments and central services. Both work within Residence Education and Housing Services (REHS), the unit responsible for custodial operations, maintenance, and the long-range care of MSU’s housing assets within Residence Education and Housing Services, a campus residential housing unit within the division of Residential and Hospitality Services, an organization that, in addition to REHS, includes culinary, athletic sports group, lean enterprises and assessment, and business operations.

Stephens, an MSU alum twice over, oversees the 27 residence halls that serve students from their first year through graduation. Black oversees the university’s apartment communities, including the residences at 1855 Place and University Village, as well as central maintenance and food-equipment services that keep dining operations running. The two arrived within a month of each other.

The work students never see

Much of what the teams do happens before the campus wakes up. Food technicians are in the dining halls by 6:00 a.m., servicing ovens and equipment so breakfast and lunch run without a hitch. During move-in and move-out, the central maintenance crew handles the key boxes, and Black points to one maintenance technician who built eight wooden key holders from scratch, shaping and assembling them over a matter of months. Then there is the quieter, constant labor of patching and plastering in buildings Black affectionately calls “seasoned.”

“I use that phrase a lot about our buildings,” Black said. “They’re a little older.” Most of that work happens during low-occupancy stretches in summer and over spring break, when students are away.

“A lot of our stuff is taken care of before students wake up, and a lot of our stuff is taken care of when students are sleeping,” Black claimed. “By the time they wake up in the morning, they just wonder why everything’s fixed. They don’t know how it got done.”

Stephens frames the scale of it. Across 5.6 million square feet, 27 residence halls, and three apartment areas, the division serves roughly 16,000 residents during the academic year.

“They don’t experience Michigan State University in silos,” Stephens explained. The teams adhere to both ISSA and APPA guidelines for cleaning and apply the same high standards to maintenance. “We pride ourselves on directly impacting student learning from the facility standpoint,” he said, describing environments where students can live, learn, and thrive.

Building teams that genuinely care

Universities everywhere are wrestling with staffing, training, retention, and morale, and MSU is not immune to the challenges. Stephens traces much of the current pressure to the pandemic.

“COVID really rocked our landscape in terms of staffing,” Stephens noted. “People started to really make hard choices on what they want out of life.” What keeps staff in place, he said, is renewed investment in them. When he and Black took over the unit, it lacked a dedicated trainer, so they hired one. That trainer did so well that he was promoted to lead training for the entire division, and the unit is now hiring again to fill the role.

“We pride ourselves on being developers and having people who make their impact on our institution and our organization, and then move on to bigger and better things,” Stephens said.

For Black, the first challenge he and Stephens faced was morale, frayed by the distrust that built up during the pandemic. Their approach started at the bottom.

“Some people talk about a pyramid,” Black said. “We started from the bottom and worked our way up.” That meant sitting down with frontline custodians and maintenance workers, then supervisors and managers, and on up to leadership, then acting on what surveys, town halls, and staff meetings surfaced rather than filing the feedback away.

“It’s not your position title. It’s not where you sit in your office or where your office is,” Black explained. “It’s about being on the ground with them and making sure that you’re hearing them.” For Black, that includes climbing into crawl spaces alongside the crew.

One team, one student experience

Students see a single experience even though it is delivered by separate operational areas. Stephens says consistency comes from a “one team” attitude set from the top down and reinforced by a philosophy that Vennie Gore, former senior vice president of residential and hospitality services, and current executive vice president of administration, helped instill: DOSE, short for delivering outstanding Spartan experiences. The unit’s mission ends with the phrase “one connection at a time,” a reminder that every interaction with a student, parent, or supporter is a chance to get the experience right. The DOSE concept is being continued by the current associate vice president of residential and hospitality services, Dr. Patricia “Patty” Martinez.

“Marque and I like to say that we don’t really have an off-season,” Stephens said. “We just have different seasons.” Move-in is the marquee example, pulling together facilities, residence education, housing operations and assignments, administrative units, culinary teams, and volunteers from across the university.

Black adds that readiness depends on listening to veteran employees, some with 15 to 20 years on campus, who can flag what happened in past years. He describes calendars color-coded like a rainbow and packed with meetings with campus partners, both inside and outside the division, all aimed at preparing for everything from fall move-in to football games to graduation.

That preparation was tested on February 13, 2023, when a mass shooting struck the campus. Black said the teams later met with every campus partner on prevention and coordinated with local and state partners to strengthen their plans. Stephens says the systems already in place held during the crisis.

“The systems that we had in place at the time worked,” Stephens said, crediting leadership, his direct reports, and campus partners with helping the unit move through the aftermath.

The culture behind the operation

Asked what they are most proud of, both men return to people. Black values an open door where honesty travels in every direction.

“I can come to work, and folks are honest with me,” Black acknowledged, describing candor that runs from the custodian cleaning a bathroom all the way to the assistant vice president. He points to a phrase the department’s director borrowed from the 2002 film Drumline: One Band, One Sound. “We cannot silo ourselves,” Black said. The payoff shows up in visitors’ feedback that the buildings, seasoned as they are, still feel fresh.

For Stephens, pride lives in development. For example, the unit launched a Women in Facilities employee resource group that has become a pipeline into supervisor roles.

“We’ve made a concerted effort to provide a resource for the women in facilities to gather, feel safe, and share development opportunities with each other,” Stephens noted. The teams also pair technical training with soft-skills work, drawing on programs such as the ISSA Advanced Custodial Program and APPA resources.

What ISSA membership delivers

Membership in ISSA, both men say, keeps the operation aligned with national standards rather than working in isolation. Black describes it as a way to keep raising the bar.

“We don’t want just wood for the fire,” Black stated. “We want to put coal in there. We want it to burn consistently.” Staying flat is not the goal, he said; leveling up is.

Stephens points to a longer track record. The unit has pursued Cleaning Industry Management Standard (CIMS) certification since 2014 and displays its accreditation in public facilities.

Having earned the CIMS-GB (Green Building) with Honors designation, the team is now pursuing the sustainability credential and preparing to host assessors in the fall.

“Our unit has been engaged in the CIMS certification standards since 2014,” Stephens said, “and that’s something we intend to continue to do.”

Preparing for the next generation

The biggest challenge ahead, Stephens says, is meeting the expectations of a new generation of students while running more efficiently. The math is daunting. MSU’s residence halls were built between 1939 and 1967, with the last major hall completed in 1967.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do to make these buildings meet the needs for the 2026 and beyond student,” Stephens said, citing multiple infrastructure updates.

Black frames the same challenge in terms of value and trust. Students and parents are paying for a product, and the product has to match the price, he said.

“We’re always trying to find a moving target,” Black said. He and Stephens chase that target the old-fashioned way, by paying attention, riding a golf cart through move-in in reflective vests, standing at the elevators, and listening to students talk about everything from loft beds to carpet. It all comes back, Black says, to the question Gore keeps in front of the team: How are we delivering an outstanding Spartan experience?

For two leaders who each left the Midwest and found their way back, the answer is the same one their crews live out before sunrise every day, one connection at a time.