By Dylan Pichnarcik
Asst. News Editor
Changes are coming to laundry services on campus.
The state university system’s contract with CSC SystemWorks is set to expire on June 1. The Massachusetts State College Building Authority (MSCBA), which owns and maintains the buildings at the state’s nine universities, terminated that contract.
Fowler Laundry Solutions has been selected as a replacement company, according to Director of Residence Life, Glenn Cochran. It is unclear when the new contract with Fowler will begin.
With this new company, all of the washing and drying units in residence halls will be replaced. Laundry will now be free for all residents, Cochran said.
“[The new machines] are a different make and model,” Cochran said. “They are more attractive machines.
“[MSCBA] started to hear from some campuses that there were issues [with CSC],” he said. “Some of them reported receiving older machines, lack of service responses - those are things I was hearing from our counterparts at other campuses.”
He said while students at FSU reported that washer and dryer units in the residence halls were not being repaired in a timely manner, “some of the others [state universities] had even worse problems.”
Cochran added, “I’m excited for the change because we don’t want laundry to be something that we have to think about much. We don’t want it to be a hassle for students.”
On April 1, students were evacuated from Corinne Towers Hall due to a resident’s clothes ignited in one of the dryer units. According to Cochran, CSC was not found at fault for the fire.
The clothes ignited due to overloading of the unit, according to a Framingham Fire Department report filed on April 2.
[Editor’s Note: See “Dryer ignites in Towers Hall, causing evacuation,” in the April 5 issue of The Gatepost.]
Since the end of the fall semester, laundry has been free due to an error from CSC. Cochran said moving forward, laundry will remain free on campus.
An application will be available for both IOS and Android users that will allow students to control the machines through their smartphones and watch the amount of time left on the cycle.
According to Cochran, there will not be a decrease in the number of laundry units in the residence halls.
With the new units coming to campus, there will also be an increase in accessible washing machines and dryers for students. Cochran said, “We decided we had to make some changes that we had to do, like making washers and dryers available at lower levels” for students who may be physically disabled.