By Mike Eaton / Staff Writer

Pitt-Greensburg, for all talk of increased enrollment, still has only one change machine for student use – and it often doesn’t work.

The change machine, located in the recreation center of Chambers Hall, is the only way that many students know of to get quarters, so they can do laundry on campus.

“The change machine situation has been a problem since I was a freshman,” says former Pitt-Greensburg student and current resident director Brian Root. “And that’s back in 2000.”

Root has been part of an initiative to change the laundry situation on campus. According to SGA president Aaron Slafka, Pitt-Greensburg’s contract with the company that provides the laundry machines, Equipment Marketers, is up at the end of the year.

The current plan, still being finalized through members of student government and the resident student council, would involve a flat-rate fee for students to pay in their tuition, allowing them to do laundry throughout the year at no extra charge.

Root has visited St. Vincent College, one institution of higher learning with a flat-rate fee, and got information on their laundry facilities.

“They charge about $25 a semester,” says Root. “I was there at 2 p.m. on a Friday – and I could not believe how many people were in their laundry room. I don’t know what it’s like in every residence hall, here, but I don’t think it’s ever that full right now.”

Right now, residents require at least $2 in quarters to wash and dry a load of laundry on campus.

“We do have a few students who ask about a change machine to do laundry,” says Slafka, who also works at the information desk outside the rec room, “and unfortunately, the one in the game room rarely works. I tell them to try and get change from the Chartwells staff.

“If students did not need quarters for laundry, it would not be an issue at all,” Slafka said.

Root says that one drawback of a flat fee would be that students who live close to home might object, since they wouldn’t need to use the facility at all. Junior Lauren Griffith says she goes home every weekend to work, so she does laundry at home.

“But if you put it in the tuition,” Griffith said, “then I’d be able just to do it here, as well.”

Junior Derrick Wiest says he has given the proposal some thought, since hearing about it.

“I was originally against the idea, since a flat fee might overcharge students who don’t wash as much,” Wiest said. “But if I don’t have to pay for each load, then I can wash my jeans in one load and my shirts in the other, and I won’t have to worry about my shirts getting torn. It would pay for itself.”

Root also mentioned that a flat fee might lessen the number of laundry issues.

“You get people who say the machines are broken, which can happen because people shove the washer too full of clothes so they only have to spend a dollar.”

If they can even get that dollar in quarters. Sometimes, in desperation, students even mistake the copier in the rec room of Chambers for a change machine, and lose money in the process. Besides that, students find that the actual change machine too-often malfunctions.

“Even after three years living on campus, I find myself strapped for quarters,” Slafka says. “I would unplug the change machine in the game room, and after I plugged it back in, it would work.”

“I used to put a dollar into the vending machine in Village Hall and use the coin return,” Root said, “and that’s how I always got my change.”

Root makes it clear that any students who see the laundry and change situation as a problem will have to be active about solving it.

“The students have to be the driving force behind this,” Root says. “From what I’ve heard, [the Resident Life staff] support this, but the students have to be proactive to get this done.”