In the pre-dawn hours throughout Commencement-Reunion Weekend, crews arrange and rearrange venues for events
After Campus Dance revelers beat a weary path to bed in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday, the floors on which they foxtrot will be transformed by a troop of workers who orchestrate the first big metamorphosis of Commencement-Reunion Weekend.
By the time visitors wander back to The College Green a few hours later, their coffee and Commencement forum schedules in hand, the dance floors and empty cups will have disappeared, replaced by a new arrangement of chairs, tables and refreshment centers.
"On Friday night visitors see one thing and Saturday it’s entirely different," said James Coen, director of maintenance and service operations. "They are kind of amazed. It’s sort of like ‘when did all this happen?’"
The largely unseen process of assembling and disassembling setups for events varies little from year to year.
Shortly after Campus Dance ends at 1 a.m., banks of lights click on to illuminate The College Green beyond the starry light cast by hundreds of white lanterns.
"Some dancers hang around until about 2, but by 3 it’s just us out there," said Nicholas Golato, lead carpenter, who has worked every Commencement Weekend since he came to Brown in 1975.
One crew removes the screws that hold the plywood dance floors together; another crew stacks the plywood; a third bundles the stacks with steel bands. Forklifts roll onto the scene to hoist the bundles onto a flatbed that trucks them away until next year.
At 3:30 a.m., coffee and sandwiches arrive for the workers, who won’t stop again until 7 for breakfast. The group of more than 70 includes carpenters, electricians, masons, plumbers, custodians and groundskeepers.
Many comb the grass with magnets to ensure that no screws from the dance floor are left behind. Rakes catch discarded cups. Because the refreshment centers are in different locations Friday and Saturday night, electricians shift the lighting that highlights those areas.
Again Sunday and Monday, workers return in the early hours. They construct stages, drape them with skirts, and adorn them with floral displays; they raise and lower flags; they wipe and dry chairs; they clean the campus throughout.
"I’ve met a lot of people up there [on The College Green] in the middle of the night," said William Salisbury, lead electrician, who will work his 13th Commencement Weekend this year.
Only the sound system, tables and chairs are provided by outside vendors.
Preparing the campus for the four-day ceremonial event begins weeks in advance.
After students move out of their dorm rooms, custodial crews scour about 3,000 rooms in preparation for alumni who will attend reunion. The crews polish floors, paint, replace torn shades, and fit linens onto beds.
Electric candles are placed in each window of University Hall, to be lit Friday evening and not turned off again until Monday, after the ceremonies conclude. (That day, however, only the candles on the east side of the building are turned off. Those on the west side remain lit for another few weeks as a symbol of the candles that beckoned the French reinforcements up the river during the Revolutionary War, said Coen.)
Groundskeepers seed and fertilize campus greenery, mow the lawns and prune the bushes. Student workers bolster the crew and help plant new flowerbeds with plants that have been cultivated in a greenhouse on campus.
"This place never sleeps — never stops. You go from one thing to another," said Patrick Vetere, superintendent of grounds. "The new people don’t know what to think — they just get caught up in the wave and get carried."
During the second week of May, carpenters set up 11-foot-tall poles around the campus from which electricians string wires for the lanterns of Friday’s Campus Dance and Saturday’s Pops Concert.
During the fourth week of May, workers attach the lanterns. Nearly a thousand globes will bob in the wind this year — up from about 630 — including those that will appear for the first time on the front campus.
Then, early Sunday morning of Commencement Weekend the lanterns all come down. "It takes us weeks to set it up and then in two days it’s down," said Salisbury. "How do you do it? I don’t know — you just do it. Everybody works together."
When all the ceremonies conclude and the alumni, students and their families have gone home, Tuesday is devoted to filling out time cards and billing sheets, according to Vetere.
After 26 years of working Brown’s Commencement, Golato’s personal preparation for the weekend is fairly simple: Lots of sleep beforehand.
"It’s hectic but you’re geared up for it," said Golato. "You definitely work the tired right out."