She gets in, she rinses and she turns off the water. Then, she lathers up and turns the water back on to rinse.

White says she takes these “military-style” showers to cut back on water consumption.

As the coordinator of the Residents’ Resource Awareness Program, White is working with Eco Reps to install a shower timer program in Higginson dorm. The program would encourage residents to reduce the amount of time they spend in the shower.

Eco Reps are elected representatives of each dorm’s hall council who promote green living for on-campus residents.

“One of the biggest barriers to conserving water in the home and at the dorm is that people have no idea how long they’re spending in the shower,” White said. “(The program is) a good way to let people see how easy it is to take a shorter shower.”

The plan is to initiate the pilot program as soon as spring 2011, but is pending shipment of all 70 shower timers.

Some timers have been backordered by the distributor, so the program may be pushed to fall, White said.

The program is being funded by the Residence Halls Association, which agreed to underwrite the $1,225 cost of the program.

The timers, which are bright blue and shaped like a drop of water, stick to the side of the shower with a suction cup and allow users to set a target shower time.

“Say you’re taking a 15-minute shower now and you’d like to get down to 12 minutes,” White said. “You’d set the timer at 12 minutes, and as it gets close to the end, the timer starts beeping to remind you to finish up your shower.”

White said the idea for the program came from the Eco Reps last year, who chose Higginson for the shower timer program mainly because the building has its own water main. This will allow the university to take data before and after the implementation of the pilot program and evaluate its success.

If implemented during spring quarter, the timers will be handed out by Eco Reps who will go door-to-door asking residents to voluntarily participate in the program. If implemented during fall quarter, the timers will likely be installed in the showers before residents arrive. But participation in the program will still be voluntary.

Jordan Westerholm, an Eco Rep involved with the program, said he thinks if more people could see what impact they were having, they would do what they could to reduce their impact.

According to White’s calculations, if all of the residents in Higginson reduced their shower times by an average of  six minutes each, they would save 62,000 gallons of water per quarter, equal to almost $1,000 in savings per academic year.

“People hear the same old things constantly; like turn the water off when you’re brushing your teeth, recycle, compost, walk instead of drive your car,” Westerholm said. “My real advice for being environmentally friendly is to not just do things because you’re told to do them.”