Most students have their favorite floor of Alden Library; for some, it’s the fourth floor with the big booths, the third-floor CoLab with pink walls or the quiet study space on the seventh floor full of diligent students. Regardless of the seventh floor’s popularity, it is one of the library’s floors that lacks gender-inclusive bathroom options.
The first and sixth floors only have a male restroom and the seventh floor only has a female restroom; all three floors have no single-use restrooms or accessible bathroom stalls. Floors two, three, four and five have both a male and female restroom, at least one single-use bathroom stall and an accessible bathroom.
Not only is there a lack of equitable bathroom options in Alden, but the university’s campus buildings also indicate more male restrooms than female and unisex bathrooms.
According to University Planning, there are 63 male restrooms, 59 female restrooms and 52 unisex restrooms. These bathrooms are within buildings that primarily function as academic facilities, including some suite-style restrooms often used by staff, faculty, and students working or learning within those departments.
Interim Dean of University Libraries Janet Hulm said an issue with turning bathrooms into single-use restrooms is losing capacity. She said turning the bathrooms into single-stall restrooms may affect users, and she doesn’t know the most effective solution to creating additional bathrooms.
Although Hulm said the library strives to welcome and ensure everyone feels welcome, she said the library bathroom can use updating.
“I think our restrooms, in general, are ready for a refresh,” she said. “I think that we could give thought to those restrooms in the future.”
But the single-use restrooms already implemented in Alden were done with effort and thought, she said.
When students typically use the bathroom, they leave their stuff in hopes no one will sit in their spot while they are gone. Going to an entirely different floor can risk someone stealing their personal belongings, which is what Hayden Boyer, a freshman majoring in music production and recording, fears.
“I like to make sure that where my stuff (is left) ... it'll be OK,” Boyer said. “The possibility of someone probably taking my stuff does not sit well with me.”
Although Boyer doesn’t believe it’s urgent for the library to add additional bathrooms on every floor, she said it’s still odd there aren’t male, female and single-use restrooms on every floor.
“It’s also just inconvenient to go to the floor under to go to the bathroom,” Boyer said.
Boyer said she hopes the university addresses the lack of male, female and single-use bathrooms in the future.
Hulm similarly hopes the future entails an update regarding equitable bathroom access in Alden, but she said the library’s bathroom remodels are not on anyone’s to-do list.
