Not counted among those thousands are several thousand more competitors and spectators who visit this weekend for the Iowa Special Olympics and in early August for the Iowa Games. The two and a half months between spring commencement and early August are a boom time for special events staff, according to Mary Ann Simpson, marketing and conference coordinator for the residence hall system. Because sizable clusters of rooms aren't available during the school year, the residence halls house conference participants only during the summer months. Simpson said the number of camps and conferences scheduled at ISU has exploded in the last five years, in part because the university works harder to market itself as a conference site. This year's visitors log will be typical, Simpson said.
Residence halls are a self-supporting unit of the university.
But summer visitors on campus positively impact the university in more ways than financially. Simpson said Iowa State can recruit and keep higher quality residence hall employees because it can offer year-round employment. She noted that residence staff at colleges without a full summer schedule often receive only nine-month contracts, a factor that reduces the employee pool. Earl Dowling, director of enrollment services, said Iowa State can't court every student that attends summer camp, but has had success recruiting from among specific groups of students. Coaches, too, use summer camps to get an early look at budding athletes and to interest them in Iowa State.