Clothing still not dry? Give it another year

Students will have to horde extra quarters for at least another year to get their laundry done - that is, if they want dry clothes.

While some changes are currently in the works for a couple of college houses, the University is not making any unif orm changes to laundry services on campus until at least July 2008.

Penn officials would not specify the exact reason for waiting to take major action until then, when their contract with Mac-Gray Corporation - the company that manages campus laundry services - expires.

And they're not the only ones remaining tight-lipped.

Mac-Gray Corporation branch manager John Christian would not say definitively whether the University will face any penalties if it withdraws from its contract with Mac-Gray, but he acknowledged that Penn may indeed want to hold off on implementing significant improvements to the machines until the contract expires.

He also noted that union negotiations could also be holding up the process.

In the meantime, Penn officials are currently experimenting with different types of laundry-service revampings.

Over the course of spring break - the University is still negotiating an exact date - the laundry machines in Mayer Hall will be replaced with new energy-efficient machines, Christian said.

Other proposed changes include renovating the laundry rooms and making more machines accept PennCash, he said.

In addition, last semester, Mac-Gray implemented a Laundry Alert program in Sansom Place with which students can check machine availability online and see when their laundry is done, said Dana Matkevich, a spokeswoman for Housing and Conference Services.

But another avenue that may need addressing is the way in which students can voice complaints about the service, currently via college-house information centers.

"The big problem is that students don't know who to contact, so they don't report broken machines," said College freshman and UA member Claire Choi, who has been working on improving Penn's laundry services.

Next month, the UA will distribute a survey to gauge student opinions about the conditions of Penn's laundry services and then draft a series of contract proposals in March, Choi said.

"We're looking at adding different payment options for laundry, bringing in more environmentally friendly machines and possibly providing more laundry facilities for off-campus students," she added.

But all these changes might not assuage the concerns of some Penn students.

"I have to put my clothes in two different dryers," Engineering freshman Niel Chen said. "Dryers are the biggest problem because they simply don't dry. And in many rooms, half of the washing machines are broken, too."

Matkevich would not say how many students have complained about faulty laundry machines, but she said she receives "a few" complaints each month.

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