Students living in the resident halls next fall can expect some of the comforts of home, because the toilet paper in the dorms is receiving an upgrade.
“Dorms are where students live for eight months of the year, so it is basically home for us,” said junior management and administration major Ethan Zentz. “I figured we should have decent toilet paper in the place that we live.”
Zentz began the campaign to upgrade toilet paper in the dorms last year.
“Ethan approached me last spring,” Director of Custodial Services Pat Dempsey said. “It was too late to purchase [new toilet paper] then, but we made plans for next semester.”
Zentz said he has has surveyed a variety of toilet paper, but the front-runner brand is still under wraps.
“The company name is not important, since only those who work with custodial products would know it,” he said. “It isn’t something you find on your grocery store shelf. It is two-ply and quilted, so we should use less of it.”
Zentz and Student Senate have been comparing different toilet paper brands for the university to buy in June.
“Ethan and the senate tested the paper by feel and we talked to distribution and compared cost,” she said. “It’s too early to get our concrete proposals, though. It’s difficult for companies to give pricing now.”
Dempsey said while an improved brand of toilet paper is important, the price of the new paper is just as critical.
“We can’t predict how much paper the resident halls will use,” she said. “They may consume more or less [than now]. We’ll be walking a fine line of comfort verses price.”
Because the toilet paper will be thicker, Dempsey said less should be used. But if students do overuse it, the paper may not remain in the resident halls.
“Next year’s statistics will be important,” she said. “Consumption may affect costs and we might need to review [whether or not to keep the new paper]. If it fails, we’ll know pretty quickly. We want to be satisfactory to our students but don’t want to blow our budget out of the ballpark.”
Dempsey said pricing will be done around April.
“If pricing goes well, we’ll go with [the chosen brand],” she said.
Dempsey said summer break will serve as the perfect time to switch out the paper, despite all of the construction of the resident halls.
“There will be a lot of construction on campus and a number of buildings will be closed, but we can place [the new paper] into the halls that will be occupied,” Dempsey said.
Zentz said he agreed.
“It needs to happen during the summer, when there is a gap of time in which no one lives in the dorms,” he said.
