Women may have noticed a new addition to the restrooms on Baker University Center's first and fourth floors - bright pink machines that dispense tampons, a commodity previously found only in vending machines across campus.
Baker Center purchased three machines, one for each of the center's most high-traffic restrooms and one backup, and installed them March 15, said Sujit Chemburkar, the executive director of Baker Center and university events.
The machines cost $195 each, including the machine itself, 300 tampons, and shipping and handling. Money from tampon sales will go toward replenishing the machines and, as of April 9, 18 tampons had been sold.
Baker Center staff purchases the tampons through vendPINK, a program that donates 20 percent of the profits from vended tampons to Breast Cancer Network of Strength.
Twenty percent of sales goes to breast cancer research
and I thought that was appropriate Chemburkar said.
Services provided by the network include a 24-hour hotline staffed by breast cancer survivors, breast cancer information sessions that inform women in underserved areas, and a wig and prosthesis bank for women with limited resources.
Tampons from the new machines are sold for $0.75 each.
In January, OU's Student Senate passed a resolution, authored by Women's Affairs Commissioner Liz Herron, asking that tampon machines be added to Baker Center.
Herron said Baker Center has been really supportive by installing tampons in its restrooms and cited a lack of staff, money and attention to the problem as reasons why it had not installed the machines in the past.
Tampon machines will be installed in other buildings around campus, said Gwyn Scott, executive director of culinary and dining operations, adding that the addition of tampon machines is outside the parameters of the vending contract. Tampons, however, are offered in vending machines around campus.
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Emily Atherton
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A tampon dispenser hangs in the fourth floor women's restroom of Baker University Center. (Megan Dowler | FOR THE POST)
