Describe your Spotless Space.

The University of Maryland is proud to nominate our Eppley Recreation Center for the 2026 ISSA Spotless Spaces Award. The University of Maryland at College Park is the flagship institution of the University System of Maryland. Our mission is to provide excellent teaching, research and service. The university educates students and advances knowledge in areas of importance to the state, nation and world. We are a community of individuals living and working together to support and advance the educational and research mission of the institution.

The Eppley Recreation Center is the shining centerpiece of the recreation and wellness programs that support the 41,000 Terps who attend school here. Our RecWell program exists to enrich the educational experience and encourage personal growth by inspiring the University community to be active and live well 4 and the Eppley Recreation Center is the facility that enables us to achieve that purpose. The Eppley Recreation Center is open 350 days per year, open 18 hours per day during the week and 14 hours per day on weekends, recorded 764,813 users in 2025 and hosted an estimated 20,000 additional guests for events as either athletes or spectators (e.g., swim meets).

During a recent external review by 3 Directors from peer institutions (UW-Madison, Univ of Minnesota, DePaul Univ), the review team unanimously agreed that the Eppley Recreation Center and RecWell facilities were the cleanest and best maintained recreation facilities they had ever seen.

The Eppley Recreation Center opened in Feb 1998, and to this day, we often have guests and users comment that the building looks new, especially alumni parents who are visiting their students and can’t believe the building looks like it did when they were students.

What specific measures do you or your team implement to ensure this space meets the highest standards of cleanliness and embodies the value of clean?

Housekeeping services for the Eppley Recreation Center and other RecWell facilities are provided by the Housekeeping staff of the Department of Residential Facilities. We achieve the highest standards of cleanliness by:

• Partnering our Housekeeping program with the RecWell program so closely that there is no light between us. Though separate organizations under the same umbrella,the Division of Student Affairs, we are effectively one in purpose and commitment to shared values and outcomes. Through this we see the facility with the same eyes and the same commitment to serving our students.
• We train our Housekeeping staff in the best practices in the industry. Every member of our Housekeeping staff is a CMI Certified Custodial Technician. Every Lead Housekeeper is a CMI Certified Custodial Technician Advanced and every supervisor has completed the CMI Train the Trainer program. We employ a full time housekeeping skills trainer and we have a dedicated housekeeping training area. We are committed to having the most knowledgeable and highest skilled team in our industry.
• We use top quality products and equipment. The best results require the best tools. We check and double check our work. We don’t think we are doing a good job, we know we are doing a good job. Not only does the housekeeping staff inspect their own work but every level of supervision has an eye on quality of service. We don’t make many mistakes but when we do we learn from them.
• We foster and support our housekeeping staff like they are family. Our longest serving member of the Eppley Recreation Center housekeeping team started when the building opened in 1998. He is now serving the children of the students he served when he started! No amount of gold can buy that. It is years of being a part of a great team that makes that happen.

What does having a spotless space mean to you and your team and how does it contribute to the organization’s business outcomes?

While the physical task of our housekeeping team is to maintain the highest standards of cleanliness in this showpiece facility…we are actually in the business of making the world a better place through our students and all of the tomorrows that they will contribute to. We expect our students to do great things with what they learn, the questions they will ask, the research they will do, the communities they will build and the care they will give over all of their tomorrows. Providing spotless spaces, like the Eppley Recreation Center, frees and enables the minds and the fullest potential of our students. No housekeeper will be on the stage when one of our students wins the Nobel Prize, but they will surely have helped get them there.

How does your facility promote sustainability and/or green cleaning?

As one of the earliest university housekeeping organizations to achieve certification under the Cleaning Industry Management Standard in 2008, and continuing through today, the University of Maryland Department of Residential Facilities has long held the commitment to promote healthy places through green and sustainable cleaning. In every procurement we specify products that have the lowest environmental impact possible that meet the demands of the task at hand. Chemicals are chosen that are as safe for the environment as possible, safe for staff to use and effective for the task at hand. Paper and plastic products all meet recognized standards for source and recycled content. Microfiber textiles are used in lieu of disposable materials. The University of Maryland is committed to leaving the Earth in better 5 condition than we received it.

Terps leave small footprints.

Give any examples of how you aim to create an inclusive and accessible experience in your facility for users and cleaners.

The recreation and wellness program of the University of Maryland serves to enrich the educational experience and encourage personal growth by inspiring the University community to be active and live well. The Eppley Recreation Center and all RecWell programs are open to all of our students, faculty and staff. We are a community of more than 50,000 individuals bound together not by ancestry or origin but rather by a shared commitment to make tomorrow better than today through sharing knowledge, exploring the boundaries of science, new mediums and expression of the arts, and a commitment to welcoming everyone who will join us on that path. Our facilities are accessible to all, special needs are embraced as welcome challenges. For our housekeeping staff we follow two guiding principles, we meet each person where they are and we measure but we never judge. We build on the foundations we are given. Simultaneous translation is offered in group meetings, English language learning applications are available. Every housekeeper has a tablet computer that allows them to connect to the electronic resources of the university and the wealth of information and the communications connections that are available to every other academic and administrative professional who works here at the University of Maryland. Our Housekeeping team of the Department of Residential Facilities is a valuable and valued part of the Eppley Recreation Center team and of the University of Maryland community.