Visitor services director eyes a more inviting campus

The job description is simple — make UW–Madison an inviting, rather than an intimidating, place to visit. But the job is not, considering the complexities of campus and the multitude of visitors to it each year.

Sandra Mulry

Yet Sandra Mulry is approaching her new job as the university’s first director of visitor services with the same fervor she used to direct the successful Badger State Games.

“There are many positive things happening on campus for visitors already, and we are looking to coordinate and enhance the effort,” says Mulry, who started March 1. The Office of Visitor Services is an initiative of the Chancellor’s Office.

Counting prospective students, parents, alumni, visiting faculty, conference attendees, sports fans and others, university officials estimate there are 1 million visitors to campus each year.

Mulry’s office, in collaboration with departments and units, will organize tours, serve as a communication catalyst and work closely with the Campus Assistance Center, a full-service resource center for students. Now located in Bascom Hall, her office will move to the renovated Red Gym this fall as part of the Campus Assistance and Visitor Center.

The tours scheduled by Mulry’s office will coincide with those arranged by the Admissions Office and other departments and units each year, she says. There will be both general campus tours and, in time, self-guided walking and audio tours. Mulry hopes to hire a tour coordinator by June.

As a communications catalyst, the Office of Visitor Services will help deliver important campus information, such as construction schedules and impacts on roads and parking, to prospective and new students, parents and other visitors, Mulry says.

In particular, her office will work arm-in-arm with the Campus Assistance Center in providing a coordinated approach to making visitors feel welcome. Mulry intends to work with organizations off-campus as well, including the Greater Madison Convention & Visitors Bureau, the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center, local museums and other venues.

“We want to create a community link so people will want to use the vast resources available on campus,” Mulry says.

That link will be useful during the university’s sesquicentennial celebration, which begins this fall and runs through 1999. Mulry is a member of the Sesquicentennial Council, a group of faculty, staff and administrators helping plan the celebration, and she will assist in coordinating the Community Open House Aug. 21-22, 1999.

A Belleville native, Mulry spent nine years working for the Badger State Games, a statewide amateur sports competition, culminating with the position of director. She earned a bachelor’s in recreation resource management and a master’s in recreation administration from UW–Madison.