By Michael McCurry
Last week, Drew Auxiliary Services (DAS) announced the launch of a brand new alert system aimed at alleviating the long wait times in the laundry room. WashAlert, by Speed Queen, is designed to connect all campus washers and dryers to a single network interface that can be accessed at any time by Drew residents. On DAS’s website, Drew residents are first prompted to select their dorm building. Once they choose their residence hall, the student is then taken to a dashboard where they can see the availability status of all washers and dryers in their building as well as up to the minute tracking of current load progress. Residents can then enter their email address and phone numbers to receive notifications when a washer or dryer becomes open.
“As I am sure residents know, shared laundry rooms can be really difficult, so our primary goal is to really optimize their use,” said Executive Director of Auxiliary Services Jill Shockley. “This way, students don’t have to waste time walking back and forth to the laundry room to check if their wash is done or if a machine is open, they can just do that remotely.”
Director Shockley also commented on WashAlerts use for machine maintenance saying, “On the vendor side of things, WashAlert alerts our vendors when machines are down. So rather than waiting for a student to send us a maintenance report and us having to call the service line, it’s an immediate notification to the vendor, and then they can get someone out to come fix the issue.”
Whether the new system will be utilized is yet to be seen. One student, Genevieve Windbiel (’20) isn’t quite sure. “Laundry hasn’t ever really been a problem for me here, to be honest,” she said, adding, “I always do laundry at odd hours. I could see WashAlert being either a very useful tool or something that’ll bring a ton of people to the laundry room all at once and result in at least one fight.”
Paige Sklar (’19) had a differing opinion, saying, “I think it’s a great idea and will help students tremendously. It can even reduce the stress of constantly having to find the time to do your laundry knowing a washer or dryer might not be available.”
To start using WashAlert, go to http://www.drew.edu/auxiliary-services/about-us/laundry-services/
