E-Proctors Organize Dorm Bike Recycling

Langdell, Merrill and Wheelwright girls will soon be riding around campus in their recently refurbished purple, navy and light blue bikes. Whether it is for a quick ride to the gym or a day-trip to the beach, the cluster of communal bikes, color-coded for the dorms’ colors, will be returned to the dorms after every trip in a recent effort from the E-Proctor board to provide easy bike access around campus.

“We are hoping that we will be able to reuse some of the bikes hanging around the dorms anyway and prevent new students from having to bring or purchase their own upon arriving to campus. It’s reduce, reuse and recycle in action.”

The project is made possible by recycling the unused and derelict bikes that are found in the basements of dorms and in the “bike graveyard” and giving them to dorms across campus for all-school use. The E-Proctors started the initiative hoping that it will become a quick and easy way for Exonians to travel around campus and the Exeter vicinity.

Seniors Krissy Truesdale and Ruby Epler, members of the E-Proctor board, were the first to come up with the idea and are currently spearheading the project along with the help of other E-Proctors. For them, the project falls right into the main idea of E-Proctorship, such as being environmentally aware and leading activities that help the dormitories and community as a whole.

Additionally, the bike project benefits Exonians who cannot afford bikes or who just want to save time and money. Truesdale said, “We are hoping that we will be able to reuse some of the bikes hanging around the dorms anyway and prevent new students from having to bring or purchase their own upon arriving to campus. It’s reduce, reuse and recycle in action.”

To make the idea a reality, Truesdale and Epler met with faculty and Facilities Management to run ideas past them. In doing so, they solidified their program model and thought of ways to combat the problem of liabilities and bike accountability.

Unlike the communal “Yellow Bike Program” that students tried to implement several years ago, the current bike project, at its core, houses accountability, accessibility and a general sense of respect for each of the bikes. All of the minor repairs for the bikes will have to come from the dormitories themselves, but Epler hopes that the riders who do end up using these communal bikes take time to make sure that they are taken care of and put back after each use.

By the end of this year, ideally, Wheelwright Hall, Merrill Hall and Langdell Hall will be the first to have the bikes made readily available. For easy identification and a sense of ownership, the bikes will be painted and designed to match their respective dormitory color. Once the program starts, these dorms will start out with about two to four bikes, but as time passes and the project spreads across campus, the co-heads hope to have six or more per dorm.

Besides being economically efficient for dorm members, the program will also cut back on the levels of bike theft that currently take place due to the distinct dorm identification and the commitment to maintaining the bikes for all the other bike riders in the dorm. Most of the time when bike theft occurs, as senior Holden Hammontree, and one of the E-Proctor board members said, “[The stolen bikes] are often left in a ditch downtown or deep in the woods. One of our main goals for this program is to cut back on the amount of wasted or lost bikes and just to help everyone with getting around campus.”

As seniors this year, Epler and Truesdale have been working alongside the E-Proctor board to finalize their ideas for next year and fulfill the project’s full potential. “I’m hoping to get the project in great enough shape that next year the new board will have bikes for students upon arrival to campus,” Truesdale said.

“So far the idea has been well received by the girls in the dorm and students who often complain of theft or simply can’t afford to purchase or bring a bike to campus. Hopefully more people will be able to explore beyond where their walking feet can take them,” Epler said.