In an overhaul of River Campus laundry facilities, the Office of Residential Life and Housing Services (ResLife) has eliminated laundry fees for students and scrapped limits on laundry loads.
New washing and drying machines were also purchased, and the upgraded machines now line the walls of the laundry room in every dorm, with the exception of Riverview. Also starting this semester, students can use the UR Mobile app to find available machines and track existing laundry cycles.
The changes at UR follows a trend among other area colleges to promote more efficient and convenient laundry services, Executive Director of Residential Life and Housing Services Laurel Contomanolis said in an interview Tuesday. The decision came after ResLife was approached by the Office of Facilities and Auxiliary Operations last spring about moving toward a new system.
Rather than having students pay $2.50 each time they use a washing machine, laundry fees are now factored into room and board costs; in this way, the fees are prepaid, and students no longer have to worry about adding money to their URos account or keeping spare change handy.
While the new program operates the same in Brooks Crossing as it does elsewhere on campus—as part of a vendor contract—Riverview’s fees were eliminated through a special negotiation with the facility’s owner.
The laundry process itself remains mostly unchanged from previous years.
“Students swipe the black box in the laundry room and pick a machine,” Contomanolis explained. “It doesn’t take money from your account.” Machines in Riverview, on the other hand, are turned on by pushing in a coin slide.
Residential Advisors were informed of the change at the start of the semester and were asked to inform their residents that the unlimited laundry privileges are not meant to be abused. For example, students are not permitted to do laundry for their non-UR-affiliated friends or families.
Furthermore, only on-campus students are able to use the new system.
Contomanolis asked that students use “high efficiency” laundry detergent, which she said works better with the newly minted machines.
Otherwise, she indicated only that student life would benefit from ResLife’s changes.
“Better and easier laundry experience for students, less hassle,” Contomanolis said of her goals in implementing the new laundry system. “We should also be able to see when a laundry machine is offline [or] not working and be able to fix it earlier.”
Trombly is a member of
the class of 2018.
