Waiting for a class to start can take minutes to even hours depending on each student’s schedule. During that waiting period however, students settle for sitting on the floor, stairs, or anyplace that seems like an empty space.
While a few buildings on campus do have somewhere to sit during the waiting period, not all do. The school however is now looking to place new furniture for the use of students as well as staff.
The campus as of now is conducting a school furniture review where staff can go to the testing warehouse and evaluate the different pieces presented in the room.
For the evaluation, staff members go and take a survey where they take a seat in the presented furniture as well as take a look at the different tables and fill out the survey.
The Dovetail Company, who are bringing the different variations in furniture for school furniture, is once again in charge of bringing the samples this year as they have been for the past 3 years.
The company, who has worked with over 130 community colleges in California for the past 11 years, was designed to only work with community colleges and help colleges get the best that they can get for their money.
Christy Honeycutt who is the program manager is in charge of the budget managing and space planning says, “I work with the ordering process and working with the purchasing and getting everything ordered and delivered.”
Mellissa Meyers who is the companies’ vice-president of operations said, “We’ve had about 17 people come in.”
She then added how the process of the furniture takes place saying, “..It’s all an objective. It’s scored based on ADA ergonomic features, flexibility, maintenance and then there’s some statements under there to think about as you’re evaluating on that.”
As for the scores that the furniture receives, she continued, “and then all the scores are entered I the database and we print out the results.”
The furniture which is ADA designed are made for everyone which means that students and staff with disabilities can also enjoy the furniture as well.
While not all the furniture pieces will get picked, Meyers says “They say (the college) theses are the things we want to look at, lounge seating or desking or benches and then we go through a selection of criteria.”
The company, then looks at the different aspects of furniture and ask the college what exactly they want their furniture to do.
They then work with vendors that currently already have furniture within the college to work with people who are already familiar with the furniture.
Among the staff that has visited and evaluated the furniture pieces is Amy Blandford, who works with the Child development center.
She tried several seating pieces and said she thought the pieces were very functional. She then added, “It’s realists for our area in the office spaces, in the lounge, and in the front of offices where we greet parents.”
The furniture which are placed in different areas of campus are also looked at by program manger Honeycutt who says “I also work with the installers on sight and getting everything installed in its places.”
