Yale dorms finally may get soap

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – It took a decade of student lobbying, but Yale University appears ready to break with tradition and supply soap for dormitory bathrooms on one of the oldest campuses in America.

At a school where students have demanded and won financial aid reform and divestment from oppressive countries, calls for liquid soap dispensers went unanswered for years. Even after Yale agreed to stock two-ply toilet paper in the mid-1990s, administrators wouldn’t budge on the soap issue.

Mainly they cited the cost of keeping the dispensers stocked – more than $100,000 a year.

“It seems like a lot of money, but the school has a $12.6 billion endowment,” said junior Steven Engler, a member of the Yale student government and head of its soap committee. “Soap is just a basic necessity. All the other Ivies provide soap.” (Actually, Yale’s endowment is now up to about $15.7 billion.)

Tradition also was a factor. Generations of Yale undergraduates, including the current and former Presidents Bush, lived without university-supplied soap. Students managed by pitching in to buy soap. Parents contributed. Soap became a communal responsibility.

This month, however, the 305-year-old university put hand soap on an experimental basis in three of the school’s 12 residential colleges, as Yale’s dormitories are known. If the experiment proves affordable, soap could become available campuswide next year, said Yale Facilities Director Eric Uscinski.

The news spread quickly among alumni who campaigned for soap while at Yale.

“Victory at last!” Ted Wittenstein, a 2004 graduate who went on to analyze weapons of mass destruction intelligence for Congress, e-mailed a friend.