Patrick Inderlied is one of the new faces who has been welcoming students back to their campus homes the last few weeks.
Inderlied started working as a hospitality service associate for Housing Facilities in June. A third-generation UNL employee who grew up in Lincoln, Inderlied wants to help make campus residents’ lives easier.
“The students are the reason the school is here, and the staff needs to aid them as best as possible so they can focus on their studies and do the best academically they can,” he said.
Inderlied’s regular responsibilities include cleaning and maintaining the hallways and shared spaces in Massengale Residential Center and handling recycling at Love Hall. He’d previously worked as a custodian for Lincoln Public Schools.
Inderlied’s family has a history with the university dating back to his grandfather, who worked as an electrician in the maintenance in the 1980s and 1990s. Inderlied’s mother then worked as an accounting clerk in the College of Engineering before moving to the same position in Housing, where she worked for more than a decade. He said his mother told him she enjoyed interacting with students and other employees on the daily basis.
Inderlied said when his mother learned he had been assigned to the same department his mother spent most of her years with, they looked up current employees to see if she recognized any names.
“We found two people,” Inderlied said. “She was curious to see if people she had worked with had left the university or retired.”
One of Inderlied’s biggest tasks in his first months on the job was helping to prepare Massengale for residents. He and other members of the team cleaned every room in Massengale to get them in move-in condition.
“It’s been a whirlwind trying to get ready for the upcoming school year,” he said.
Now that students are back in the residence for Inderlied’s first academic year on the job, he’s looking forward to helping students feel more comfortable in their campus home.
“I’m hoping to try and build professional relationships with the students and be helpful to them, especially the new ones, about where stuff in the building is, and what we can do to aid them during them living for nine months in the residence hall,” he said.
Inderlied said maintaining the student’s homes sends a message to them about the community the staff creates.
“If the environment is clean, then it portrays a positive attitude from the staff toward the people that reside within the area and you show some level of care about not only them but the building they live in,” he said.
