National Clothesline

In North Carolina, one college is continuing a long-standing tradition of keeping its student body clean... literally.

Though students of Davidson College will still struggle through final exams and term papers this semester, they won’t have to worry about having enough money or time to clean their clothes. That particular chore is already taken care of by the school, which, for the past 83 years, has mandatorily charged a laundry and drycleaning service fee to all of its students.

According to Richard Terry, directory of auxiliary services for the college, students and their parents don’t even think twice about the annual fabric care fees.

“If we did not have the laundry program and someone suggested we institute it and pass on the additional costs to students through mandatory fees, they would probably get laughed out of the office,” he said. “But, it has been maintained through generations because it’s an aspect of the college’s cultural and historical fabric that people have come to value.”

Initially, Davidson started using mandatory laundry services during its 1919-1920 academic year. At the time, the cost was only $2 per month.

Now, the service operates on a fluctuating budget that is generated from collecting student fees, which Terry estimates bring in approximately $450 per year from each student.

There is no limit on how many garments can be washed, or, for that matter, how often. Students drop off about 12,000 pounds of clothes every week during the laundry’s business hours, which run from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Saturdays.

The process itself is quite simple. Machine washable items are placed into a bin and shirts and pants that require drycleaning are kept separately. After laundry workers sort the whites and colors, they check the pockets for personal belongings left behind.

Once clean, the machine-washable garments are wrapped in brown paper and the drycleaned garments are covered in plastic. Typically, the clothes are ready for pickup within 48 hours. All of the garments are easy to find since they are marked with the student’s laundry number, which is distributed to every incoming student at the beginning of their first year of schooling.

In order to avoid confusion, students are obligated to write or sew their number onto each piece of their clothing before they even arrive on campus.

When clothes are ready to be picked up, students don’t even need a receipt; Davidson believes in using an honor system. The college emphasizes to its students the importance of being accountable for their own decisions and actions.

The only form of check-out the school requires is for college-issue bed linens, and that policy was only enacted to regulate how many sheets are taken to the laundry at a time.

Terry noted that the system has worked well so far and there really isn’t a need for strict security measures since students have proven to be responsible and honest. Even the twelve laundry workers are expected to live by the same set of standards.

“Their honesty is legendary, fueled by stories of wads of cash found in pockets and returned to students who had considered them gone and lost forever,” Terry said.

Benjamin Ferrell, a senior at the school, helps keep that legend alive. “The workers once found a pen and my credit card in my pants pockets and they neatly put them in a little bag for me before they washed my laundry,” he recalled.

In addition to being known for its honesty, the laundry staff is also credited with being extremely knowledgeable and experienced by Aaron Jackson, the manager of the laundry.

“They’re all professional in what they do because they’ve been doing it for so long,” he said, noting that several staff members are second-generation employees of the laundry.

Overall, about 1,100 of Davidson’s 1,600 students use the college laundry service on a regular basis; the other 500 prefer to take advantage of the school’s free washers and dryers located around the campus in various residence halls.

The appliances were installed on the campus back in 1972 when women were first allowed admittance to the college. A subcommittee on coeducation had determined that the laundry service was improperly equipped to handle some women’s apparel. However, Davidson has since upgraded its laundry equipment to accommodate a broader range of washable and drycleanable garments.

When school is out for summer, the laundry does manage to get a break, although, it doesn’t shut down completely. About 2,000 pounds of clothing for those attending summer camps and programs still need to be cleaned on a weekly basis.

Davidson College was originally established in 1837 in Davidson, NC. It has graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars and is consistently ranked among the top liberal arts colleges in the country by U.S. News and World Report.