WEST LAFAYETTE – The toilet paper’s available in Purdue University restrooms, a basic necessity at no cost to the person who needs it.

Shouldn’t tampons be free, too?

Three years after a Purdue student came to the University Senate, asking a variation of that question and calling on professors to help champion that cause, the faculty-led governing body is addressing that question, too, and preparing the press the issue with university administration.

“It seems like a pretty basic question,” said Audrey Ruple, an assistant professor of one health epidemiology and chair of the University Senate’s Equity and Diversity Committee.

“There will be a cost, but it’s not going to exorbitant,” Ruple said after presenting the idea to the University Senate on Monday. “I hope this is not something we’re going to get a lot of pushback on.”

The University Senate push comes three years after Tulika Wagle, a former Purdue Student Government member, started a petition calling on the university to make feminine hygiene products available as a basic necessity in all campus bathrooms.

“Menstrual care products are not luxury goods, because menstrual care needs are not a choice,” Wagle wrote in the petition. “Menstrual care products are just as necessary and should be just as free as the toilet paper, seat covers, soap and napkins in bathrooms.”

Wagle collected 561 signatures on a petition posted at Change.org. The University Senate resolution name checked Wagle, who has since graduated.

Since the petition circulated at Purdue, several states – including Illinois, New York and New Hampshire – started requiring public schools to provide free period products in bathrooms, according to an account in USA Today.

At Purdue, the time between the petition and a resolution from faculty – a vote is expected at University Senate’s Feb. 17 meeting – involved a pilot project to figure out use and potential cost.

Ruple said that nearly two years ago, coin-operated machines in seven restrooms in Purdue’s Psychological Sciences building were converted so the tampons they dispensed were free.

In that time, she told others on University Senate, that the building averaged $27 a month to restock period products used from those seven dispensers. Ruple said the amount of products dispensed didn’t change substantially each month from the times someone had to put quarters into the slot and when the tampons were free.

“Obviously, one of the things we needed to see, because we knew this would be a potential question or pushback is that there would be this argument that people would then stop buying products at home and would just come to school and stock up on products,” Ruple said.

“That was not something that came to fruition,” Ruple said. “These are truly emergency-use-only products. These are not the kinds of products people want to stock up on.”

The West Lafayette campus has more than 650 women’s and gender-neutral bathrooms in the academic and administration buildings, according to Rebecca Terry, communications director with Purdue physical facilities. That, she said, did not include athletic facilities or residence halls.

Ruple said the proposal being considered to take to the administration included retrofitting 450 dispensers. The majority, she said, could be done for $20, by disabling the coin slot. (“I don’t know the last time I had a quarter in my pocket,” Ruple said.) Conversion kits for some would cost $70. New ones would cost $350. She put the total estimated cost at $30,000.

Jo Boileau, Purdue Student Government president, said he’s been supportive of The Period Project – led by students aimed at similar goals. He said he hoped to see a final recommendation include provisions that addressed needs of Purdue’s transgender students, as well.

“I think it can be more comprehensive,” Boileau said.

Jaclyn Frank, president of The Period Project at Purdue, said the group has been working on getting readily available menstrual products into residence halls by the start of the fall 2020 semester. Frank, a sophomore studying public health, called the matter one of aligning “the university’s values of inclusion and would relieve the burden of access to products, thus allowing menstruators to remain engaged in their education.”

“I think it’s shocking and appalling that it took three years to initiate providing a resource throughout campus that students clearly indicated they wanted, especially when it is such a feasible addition to what is already provided in the bathrooms,” Frank said.

Once the University Senate finalizes a recommendation, Ruple said she wasn’t sure when an answer would come from campus administration or how long it would take to convert dispensers in campus restrooms.

“Like you heard,” Ruple said, “this seems like something basic the university should be doing.”

Reach Dave Bangert at 765-420-5258 or at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.