Residence director explains new laundry fee
Originally published in the Park University Stylus in Feb. 2013.
See also: Laundry fee highlights need for checks and balances double editorial.
By Andi Enns
Editor
On Jan. 28, the Stylus received an email from Ben Dewberry, director of residence life, offering corrections to the article “New $50 resident life fee to be implemented in fall; free laundry in dorms now” which appearing in the Jan. 25 issue of the Stylus. His initial corrections are italicized at the top of each section.
Average usage of the laundry facilities
Dewberry’s corrections: “The average student pays nearly $80 a semester on laundry. The fee will save those students $30 a semester OR $60 a year on laundry.”
Dewberry wrote the Stylus incorrectly reported the average residential student pays $30 per semester in laundry. He said the correct amount is $80, or about 35 loads per semester, as calculated from the Sept. 2012 survey of residents.
Of the 350 residents, 54 responded to the survey. Eight said they do not spend laundry money on campus or declined to answer the question. Four respondents said they spend $20 or more on laundry each week, or about nine loads of laundry. Including the four super-users creates an mean of $78.75 spent on laundry per semester.
However, removing the top four users leaves 92 percent of the respondents claiming to spend $10 or less per week on laundry. By using only these responses, the average is $58 per semester, or about 1.5 loads of laundry per week. The $50 fee will save these students $8 per semester, or about 3.5 loads of laundry.
Dewberry said he doesn’t know if the self-reported super-users understood the question to mean a weekly budget, but he includes them in his statistics to support the fee.
“Some people are down here all the time,” Dewberry said. “I don’t know if they’re really doing laundry every day. You’d have to ask them.”
The Stylus was not able to find a residential student who paid over $9 per week in laundry fees in the fall semester, or more than four loads of laundry per week.
The Survey
Dewberry’s corrections: “The survey was an introduction to this new service. Residents were asked if they liked it and if they would pay for it. Ninety-four percent of respondents said yes.”
The survey question he refers to said: “If you did a load of darks and a load of lights per week (wash and dry), it would be $4.50 which totals $72.00 per semester. Would you be willing to pay only $40.00 per semester at the beginning to have unlimited access to washing and drying machines? [sic]” Dewberry is correct that most students responded positively to that question.
“The question as I read it is leading and does not provide enough information,” said William Venable, associate professor of marketing, in an email to the Stylus. Venable teaches a course called “Consumer Behavior,” which includes market research strategies. “I don't necessarily think there is an ethics issue, just a survey design issue.”
Lora Cohn, associate professor of communication arts and chair of Park’s Institutional Research Board for ethical human research, agrees.
“I don’t see how they get that students want a laundry fee from that question,” Cohn said. “I think you could take it that they are open to the fee. Wanting is not the same as being open to something. They do seem to be going beyond a logical interpretation of the data.”
Additionally, the survey asked the following questions:
- Do you use the laundry machines in the residence halls?
- How much do you estimate spending on laundry each week?
- Do you like this new contract plan?
- Why do you chose not to use the laundry machines in the residence halls?
- Demographics: Chesnut Hall or Copley Quad
The survey did not explain what the contract plan entailed, it just asked for an opinion. The Stylus was unable to acquire a copy of the email message introducing the survey.
Venable said if he designed the survey, he would include more questions and have more options for answers. He listed these as additions to the survey:
- Do you do your own laundry?
- Do you pay for your own laundry?
- What factors influence your laundry efforts? Amount and type of clothing, location of laundry facilities, cost per load
- Do you separate clothes by color or type? Yes or No.
- If yes, check all that apply: White, Color, Delicate, Other
- If you don’t do laundry on campus, why not? Check all that apply: Equipment quality, equipment availability, time commitment, cost
- If you had unlimited access to laundry equipment on campus how much would you be willing to pay per month?: $0-10, $11-15, $16-20, $21-25, more than $25
- Demographics: Age, gender
“You need to have a handle on who uses the system,” Venable said, “what they pay now, what they are willing to pay.”
Peer Institutions
The survey suggested the fee would be $40 per semester, but the announcement of the fee stated it would be $50 per semester. Dewberry said residence life increased the fee because peer institutions have a $50 laundry fee. He later specified “peer institutions” meant other colleges with a flat laundry fee, but did not say which ones he spoke to.
The Stylus verified that local colleges in the Kansas City and Lawrence, Kan. metropolitan areas charge in the following ways for laundry:
- Avila University in Kansas City, Mo. includes laundry as a residence hall amenity.
- Baker University in Baldwin, Kan. includes laundry as a residence hall amenity.
- Benedictine College in Atchison, Kan., has coin-operated laundry. Their Web site does not specify how much each load costs and their residence life office did not answer phone calls.
- Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kan., has coin-operated laundry. Margaret Alexander, administrative assistant in residence life at Haskell, said she did not know how much each load costs.
- Kansas City Art Institute in Kansas City, Mo. has coin-operated laundry. It costs $2.50 to wash and dry one load.
- MidAmerica Nazarene University in Olathe, Kan., includes laundry as a residence hall amenity.
- Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Mo. has coin-operated laundry. It costs $2.50 to wash and dry one load.
- University of Kansas-Lawrence has coin-operated laundry. It costs $1 to wash and dry one load.
- University of Missouri-Kansas City has coin-operated laundry. It costs $2 to wash and dry one load.
- University of St. Mary in Leavenworth, Kan., has coin-operated laundry. It costs $2.75 to wash and dry one load.
- William Jewell College in Liberty, Mo. includes laundry as a residence hall amenity.
The Stylus verified that Graceland University of Independence, Mo., Metropolitan Community College of Kansas City, Mo., Kansas City Community College in Kansas City, Kan., and Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kan., do not have laundry facilities.
None of the local colleges and universities operate laundry facilities on a flat fee basis.
Where the fee came from
Dewberry’s corrections: “I said the program was part of a renegotiated contract with our laundry service provider. The fee is how the new program works to maintain unlimited use of the facilities.”
On Jan. 28 and Feb. 1, Dewberry said in emails to the Stylus that the fee was not his idea, but simply came from a renegotiated contract with the laundry services provider.
“The service provider made the suggestion for the new model based on peer institution models and best practices,” Dewberry wrote on Feb. 1. ”Most of their contracts are now modeled as our new contract will be.”
However, Dewberry later said he did initiate the change.
“When I came here [in Aug. 2012] I found the laundry as you experienced it in the past [coin operated],” Dewberry wrote on Feb. 3. “I knew there were better options and contacted our laundry service provider.”
Dewberry said residence life researched the proposed fee by conducting the survey, interviewing residence life staff at other flat-fee colleges, and asking for approval from the Residence Hall Council, a student government association.
The Stylus never received notification of an RHC vote on any issue in fall 2012, despite the club having a public relations officer.
Dewberry said he sent the fee proposal to the office of student life, who passed it on to the finance committee of the board of trustees, who approved it in Dec. 2012.
Dewberry refused to give the Stylus a copy of the proposal.
Dorla Watkins, vice president of finances, did not return Stylus calls related to the fee or the proposal. The Stylus called on Jan. 29 and Jan. 30.
Ami Wisdom, executive assistant in the office of the vice president and general counsel which advises the board of trustees, said the executive financial committee roster is private, and the proposals are confidential.
Where the fee money goes
Dewberry said the financial breakdown of the fee is not his decision. However, he said the anticipated breakdown will be 59.7 percent to residence life and Residence Hall Council, 28 percent to the laundry vendor and maintenance costs, and 12.3 percent to laundry-related utilities.
With this breakdown, about $30 of the fee will go to residence life and RHC, and the remaining $20 will go to the laundry services.
Dewberry said the university’s laundry cost per student is $14.25 per semester. He said he doesn’t know where the excess money - the $42.75 difference between $14.25 and $58 - went before.
The Stylus asked Dewberry why the laundry services didn’t become a permanent amenity for resident students, as it is this semester.
“[B]ecause it would have gotten lost in the budget and couldn't be allocated directly back into funding for the students in the residence halls,” Dewberry wrote. “By setting it as a separate fee we are able to set it aside.”
The non-laundry portion will be split evenly between residence life and RHC, Dewberry said.
RHC plans
Dewberry’s corrections: “RHC has no plans for the use of any money given to them from the student fee. I said that a ping pong table is an example of the kind of purchase RHC could make with their funds.”
“RHC has no plans for the use of any money given to them from the student fee,” wrote Dewberry on Jan. 28.
On Feb. 3, he said RHC has plans to use the funds for officer stipends, activities, and building improvements. He said improvement projects will be voted on by the residential student population.
Currently, RHC is eligible for allocations through the Park Student Government Association, or PSGA. Allocations come from the $50 student activity fee all Parkville campus students pay. Dewberry said RHC typically requests $500 per semester.
Saruul Baatartsogt, business manager of PSGA, said in an email to the Stylus that RHC has not received general club allocations since March 2009. She did not say if RHC applied and was rejected, or did not apply at all, for subsequent semesters. Baatartsogt said the most recent request was $540 in Nov. 2011 for special funding, a request type typically used for event funding.
As a PSGA-eligible organization, RHC operates as a typical student club. They are not required to disclose their complete budget to the student body or even to PSGA, nor do they have to allow students to vote on officers. Dewberry said the new constitution, which they vote on in March, will involve elected officer positions.
Under the fee guidelines estimated by Dewberry, RHC will receive approximately $5,224 per semester, or 10.5 times their average allocation request.
Residence Life plans
Dewberry said the offices’ portion of the fee will mainly fund residence learning communities or RLCs, which will debut in fall 2013. Currently, the only RLC is a freshman honors hall for incoming students in the honors program.
The new RLCs will be called Honors Academy, Leadership Challenge, and Business. Dewberry said these groups will take courses together each semester, have a faculty adviser for the floor, and have access to exclusive programming. He did not specify how the fee will fund these RLCs.
Disciplinary challenges
Dewberry’s corrections: “There is no fear or plans for laying down the law. My only statement was this: we want residents to know that it is not OK to bring persons that do not live in the residence halls to do their laundry.”
He has no fear of students abusing the laundry services, he said.
“My only statement was this: we want residents to know that it is not ok to bring persons that do not live in the residence halls to do their laundry,” Dewberry said.
He said they don’t have consequences in mind for students who abuse the facilities. He said it will be handled on a case-by-case basis and he’d “rather it not come to that at all.”
###
See also: Laundry fee highlights need for checks and balances double editorial.
By Andi Enns
Editor
On Jan. 28, the Stylus received an email from Ben Dewberry, director of residence life, offering corrections to the article “New $50 resident life fee to be implemented in fall; free laundry in dorms now” which appearing in the Jan. 25 issue of the Stylus. His initial corrections are italicized at the top of each section.
Average usage of the laundry facilities
Dewberry’s corrections: “The average student pays nearly $80 a semester on laundry. The fee will save those students $30 a semester OR $60 a year on laundry.”
Dewberry wrote the Stylus incorrectly reported the average residential student pays $30 per semester in laundry. He said the correct amount is $80, or about 35 loads per semester, as calculated from the Sept. 2012 survey of residents.
Of the 350 residents, 54 responded to the survey. Eight said they do not spend laundry money on campus or declined to answer the question. Four respondents said they spend $20 or more on laundry each week, or about nine loads of laundry. Including the four super-users creates an mean of $78.75 spent on laundry per semester.
However, removing the top four users leaves 92 percent of the respondents claiming to spend $10 or less per week on laundry. By using only these responses, the average is $58 per semester, or about 1.5 loads of laundry per week. The $50 fee will save these students $8 per semester, or about 3.5 loads of laundry.
Dewberry said he doesn’t know if the self-reported super-users understood the question to mean a weekly budget, but he includes them in his statistics to support the fee.
“Some people are down here all the time,” Dewberry said. “I don’t know if they’re really doing laundry every day. You’d have to ask them.”
The Stylus was not able to find a residential student who paid over $9 per week in laundry fees in the fall semester, or more than four loads of laundry per week.
The Survey
Dewberry’s corrections: “The survey was an introduction to this new service. Residents were asked if they liked it and if they would pay for it. Ninety-four percent of respondents said yes.”
The survey question he refers to said: “If you did a load of darks and a load of lights per week (wash and dry), it would be $4.50 which totals $72.00 per semester. Would you be willing to pay only $40.00 per semester at the beginning to have unlimited access to washing and drying machines? [sic]” Dewberry is correct that most students responded positively to that question.
“The question as I read it is leading and does not provide enough information,” said William Venable, associate professor of marketing, in an email to the Stylus. Venable teaches a course called “Consumer Behavior,” which includes market research strategies. “I don't necessarily think there is an ethics issue, just a survey design issue.”
Lora Cohn, associate professor of communication arts and chair of Park’s Institutional Research Board for ethical human research, agrees.
“I don’t see how they get that students want a laundry fee from that question,” Cohn said. “I think you could take it that they are open to the fee. Wanting is not the same as being open to something. They do seem to be going beyond a logical interpretation of the data.”
Additionally, the survey asked the following questions:
- Do you use the laundry machines in the residence halls?
- How much do you estimate spending on laundry each week?
- Do you like this new contract plan?
- Why do you chose not to use the laundry machines in the residence halls?
- Demographics: Chesnut Hall or Copley Quad
The survey did not explain what the contract plan entailed, it just asked for an opinion. The Stylus was unable to acquire a copy of the email message introducing the survey.
Venable said if he designed the survey, he would include more questions and have more options for answers. He listed these as additions to the survey:
- Do you do your own laundry?
- Do you pay for your own laundry?
- What factors influence your laundry efforts? Amount and type of clothing, location of laundry facilities, cost per load
- Do you separate clothes by color or type? Yes or No.
- If yes, check all that apply: White, Color, Delicate, Other
- If you don’t do laundry on campus, why not? Check all that apply: Equipment quality, equipment availability, time commitment, cost
- If you had unlimited access to laundry equipment on campus how much would you be willing to pay per month?: $0-10, $11-15, $16-20, $21-25, more than $25
- Demographics: Age, gender
“You need to have a handle on who uses the system,” Venable said, “what they pay now, what they are willing to pay.”
Peer Institutions
The survey suggested the fee would be $40 per semester, but the announcement of the fee stated it would be $50 per semester. Dewberry said residence life increased the fee because peer institutions have a $50 laundry fee. He later specified “peer institutions” meant other colleges with a flat laundry fee, but did not say which ones he spoke to.
The Stylus verified that local colleges in the Kansas City and Lawrence, Kan. metropolitan areas charge in the following ways for laundry:
- Avila University in Kansas City, Mo. includes laundry as a residence hall amenity.
- Baker University in Baldwin, Kan. includes laundry as a residence hall amenity.
- Benedictine College in Atchison, Kan., has coin-operated laundry. Their Web site does not specify how much each load costs and their residence life office did not answer phone calls.
- Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kan., has coin-operated laundry. Margaret Alexander, administrative assistant in residence life at Haskell, said she did not know how much each load costs.
- Kansas City Art Institute in Kansas City, Mo. has coin-operated laundry. It costs $2.50 to wash and dry one load.
- MidAmerica Nazarene University in Olathe, Kan., includes laundry as a residence hall amenity.
- Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Mo. has coin-operated laundry. It costs $2.50 to wash and dry one load.
- University of Kansas-Lawrence has coin-operated laundry. It costs $1 to wash and dry one load.
- University of Missouri-Kansas City has coin-operated laundry. It costs $2 to wash and dry one load.
- University of St. Mary in Leavenworth, Kan., has coin-operated laundry. It costs $2.75 to wash and dry one load.
- William Jewell College in Liberty, Mo. includes laundry as a residence hall amenity.
The Stylus verified that Graceland University of Independence, Mo., Metropolitan Community College of Kansas City, Mo., Kansas City Community College in Kansas City, Kan., and Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kan., do not have laundry facilities.
None of the local colleges and universities operate laundry facilities on a flat fee basis.
Where the fee came from
Dewberry’s corrections: “I said the program was part of a renegotiated contract with our laundry service provider. The fee is how the new program works to maintain unlimited use of the facilities.”
On Jan. 28 and Feb. 1, Dewberry said in emails to the Stylus that the fee was not his idea, but simply came from a renegotiated contract with the laundry services provider.
“The service provider made the suggestion for the new model based on peer institution models and best practices,” Dewberry wrote on Feb. 1. ”Most of their contracts are now modeled as our new contract will be.”
However, Dewberry later said he did initiate the change.
“When I came here [in Aug. 2012] I found the laundry as you experienced it in the past [coin operated],” Dewberry wrote on Feb. 3. “I knew there were better options and contacted our laundry service provider.”
Dewberry said residence life researched the proposed fee by conducting the survey, interviewing residence life staff at other flat-fee colleges, and asking for approval from the Residence Hall Council, a student government association.
The Stylus never received notification of an RHC vote on any issue in fall 2012, despite the club having a public relations officer.
Dewberry said he sent the fee proposal to the office of student life, who passed it on to the finance committee of the board of trustees, who approved it in Dec. 2012.
Dewberry refused to give the Stylus a copy of the proposal.
Dorla Watkins, vice president of finances, did not return Stylus calls related to the fee or the proposal. The Stylus called on Jan. 29 and Jan. 30.
Ami Wisdom, executive assistant in the office of the vice president and general counsel which advises the board of trustees, said the executive financial committee roster is private, and the proposals are confidential.
Where the fee money goes
Dewberry said the financial breakdown of the fee is not his decision. However, he said the anticipated breakdown will be 59.7 percent to residence life and Residence Hall Council, 28 percent to the laundry vendor and maintenance costs, and 12.3 percent to laundry-related utilities.
With this breakdown, about $30 of the fee will go to residence life and RHC, and the remaining $20 will go to the laundry services.
Dewberry said the university’s laundry cost per student is $14.25 per semester. He said he doesn’t know where the excess money - the $42.75 difference between $14.25 and $58 - went before.
The Stylus asked Dewberry why the laundry services didn’t become a permanent amenity for resident students, as it is this semester.
“[B]ecause it would have gotten lost in the budget and couldn't be allocated directly back into funding for the students in the residence halls,” Dewberry wrote. “By setting it as a separate fee we are able to set it aside.”
The non-laundry portion will be split evenly between residence life and RHC, Dewberry said.
RHC plans
Dewberry’s corrections: “RHC has no plans for the use of any money given to them from the student fee. I said that a ping pong table is an example of the kind of purchase RHC could make with their funds.”
“RHC has no plans for the use of any money given to them from the student fee,” wrote Dewberry on Jan. 28.
On Feb. 3, he said RHC has plans to use the funds for officer stipends, activities, and building improvements. He said improvement projects will be voted on by the residential student population.
Currently, RHC is eligible for allocations through the Park Student Government Association, or PSGA. Allocations come from the $50 student activity fee all Parkville campus students pay. Dewberry said RHC typically requests $500 per semester.
Saruul Baatartsogt, business manager of PSGA, said in an email to the Stylus that RHC has not received general club allocations since March 2009. She did not say if RHC applied and was rejected, or did not apply at all, for subsequent semesters. Baatartsogt said the most recent request was $540 in Nov. 2011 for special funding, a request type typically used for event funding.
As a PSGA-eligible organization, RHC operates as a typical student club. They are not required to disclose their complete budget to the student body or even to PSGA, nor do they have to allow students to vote on officers. Dewberry said the new constitution, which they vote on in March, will involve elected officer positions.
Under the fee guidelines estimated by Dewberry, RHC will receive approximately $5,224 per semester, or 10.5 times their average allocation request.
Residence Life plans
Dewberry said the offices’ portion of the fee will mainly fund residence learning communities or RLCs, which will debut in fall 2013. Currently, the only RLC is a freshman honors hall for incoming students in the honors program.
The new RLCs will be called Honors Academy, Leadership Challenge, and Business. Dewberry said these groups will take courses together each semester, have a faculty adviser for the floor, and have access to exclusive programming. He did not specify how the fee will fund these RLCs.
Disciplinary challenges
Dewberry’s corrections: “There is no fear or plans for laying down the law. My only statement was this: we want residents to know that it is not OK to bring persons that do not live in the residence halls to do their laundry.”
He has no fear of students abusing the laundry services, he said.
“My only statement was this: we want residents to know that it is not ok to bring persons that do not live in the residence halls to do their laundry,” Dewberry said.
He said they don’t have consequences in mind for students who abuse the facilities. He said it will be handled on a case-by-case basis and he’d “rather it not come to that at all.”
###