By Lucy Hubbard

After a three-year project by the Student Government Association, a total of 425 dispensers stocked with free menstrual products have been installed in 100 academic buildings on campus, and the number is still growing. 

Josie Shaffer, first year student at the University of Baltimore School of Law, spearheaded this issue when she was a student at the University of Maryland. 

The project started in fall 2019, when Shaffer was chair of the Facility Student Advisory Committee. A student group, Get Ovary It, asked the committee for funding for a one year pilot program that would bring dispensers to 15 bathrooms on campus. The committee unanimously voted in favor of the program, but it still needed to be approved by the Facilities Council. 

Despite the unanimous vote, the Facilities Council met and decided against the program because they felt students would be upset if the pilot program only lasted a year due to unsustainable funding. Shaffer continued to meet with the Facilities Council until April 2020, when the council decided that the program was not a facilities issue. 

“They didn’t believe that menstrual products were the definition of a facilities improvement,” Shaffer said. 

After the Facilities Council turned down the program, Shaffer went to the Division of Student Affairs looking for funding, only for them to also say that it was not a student affairs issue. 

“So I’m like [they’re] not a facilities improvement [or a] student affairs issue, which I believe they’re both of them, where will this fall?” Shaffer said. “And I’m not someone to give up.”

In the summer of 2020, Shaffer created a Menstrual Product Climate Survey to assess if there was a need on campus for the dispensers. The survey received over 300 responses, far more than any other Shaffer had conducted during her time with the SGA.

“I think that sent a signal to me that this is an important project and students really care about it outside of the nine or ten people that voted for the project in the Student Facilities Fund,” Shaffer said. “So that kind of gave me the energy to keep going and keep going.” 

In November 2020, Shaffer, then the SGA’s Director of Student Affairs, submitted a bill to the SGA for 25 menstrual product dispensers for a three year pilot program. The bill proposed that the $48,000 surplus from the lack of student activities amid the COVID-19 pandemic go towards the dispensers. 

Additionally, Facilities Management agreed to cover all service, labor and restocking of the dispensers without charging the SGA. 

The bill passed in December 2020 and the first 11 dispensers were installed in August 2021. When Shaffer found out, she and her roommates took pictures with the dispenser in Edward St. John Learning and Teaching Center. 

“It’s just a huge project that I’ve been working on for so long, so it was cool to see that in person,” Shaffer said. “But then the work isn’t done.”

Shaffer created another survey for the dispensers, collecting more data to see if the dispensers were being used and if they were convenient to students. The funding for the menstrual products was coming out of student’s tuition but Shaffer felt it should be funded by the university. 

“That’s unfair to put onto the students,” Shaffer said. “It’s much like paper towels, toilet paper, soap. That is something that every student needs and it should have been funded by the university originally.”

Within one year of the start of the pilot program, the university decided to finance the program and expand them to more bathrooms on campus. 

“I think that shows how important menstrual health and menstrual equity is to the university,” Shaffer said. “Because if you are on your period or you don’t expect your period, and you’re in Jimenez and there’s no menstrual product dispenser in there, you’re screwed essentially, like you have to go to class fearing the leak.” 

SGA’s Director of Student Affairs and junior history and politics, philosophy and economics major Sarah Cobau agrees that these products are a necessity. 

“A lot of the time [period products are] positioned as a luxury good, in a lot of states they’re taxed unlike other necessities,” Cobau said. “But it’s something that people who menstruate need in order to function in their lives and in society.” 

Now that the university will facilitate the program, the dispensers will expand into residence halls. 

According to Scott Cronin, president of the Residence Hall Association and junior government and politics major, after the dispensers were introduced in academic buildings the demand for them in residence halls increased. 

“We’ve had students come to our residential facilities meetings and talk about wanting to do the same thing in the residence halls,” Cronin said. “And we really want to work on this and so we started those conversations with the leadership and residential facilities [and] they were rather receptive.” 

According to the Department of Resident Facilities, rollout of the products is delayed because of supply chain issues, but will begin as soon as materials arrive. 

Dispensers in resident halls will be available in all public access bathrooms. For dorm buildings like Oakland Hall that have private bathrooms in student’s suites, dispensers will be installed in bathrooms on the ground floor. Resident halls in South Hill are largely made up of suites with private bathrooms, meaning that there is no space for the dispensers.

Cronin said the RHA hopes to provide care packages of menstrual products for students who do not have easy access to the dispensers. Students who indicate the need for menstrual products can receive them through the university at the start of the semester. 

“It’s a very new conversation, but it’s something that they’re very much looking into,” Cronin said. “The rest of student leaders on this campus through SGA and administrators who have gotten behind this are all unified in addressing period poverty on this campus.”

SGA is not the only organization working to end period inequity on campus. The Department of Resident Life’s donation program, Terp to Terp, helps collect donations of menstrual products. The products are distributed at the Campus Pantry, located under the South Campus Dining Hall. 

“Hunger and homelessness connect to so many other areas, [including] period products [and other] essential living items,” Terp to Terp founder Lisa Ann Walter said. “If you’re experiencing hunger and homelessness, you’re likely needing help in some of these other areas.” 

Walter thinks the dispensers are a good start, but more can be done towards period equity on campus. 

“I wonder if there’s potentially more that we could do to get people comfortable or invested in reusable menstrual products as well,” Walter said.  “That could potentially help people with that financial burden associated with the cost of buying a box of tampons every single month.”

While many believe there is more to be done, the initiative is a big step towards period equity on campus.

“[University of Maryland] is a huge community and so anyone could be coming to this campus unsure when the next period is so that is just like a burden that is so easy to eliminate,” Shaffer said. “And it’s so impactful on such a huge campus because that’s essentially like 50,000 people that you’re servicing with these menstrual products.” 

Featured Image: A new period product dispenser in the bathroom on the fourth floor of McKeldin Library on March 2, 2023. Photo by Lucy Hubbard