Starting Jan. 28, students will have to walk a little farther to pick up packages from the campus postal center.
The postal and copy centers — which handle student package pick-up, outgoing official college mail, and all kinds of printing — will move out of the basement of Moss Hall. The offices’ new location will be in the upper level of the Fowler Maintenance building, located just south of Simpson Residence. Students can enter through the double glass doors on the ground floor.
“We do understand it’s a little inconvenient for it to be farther away, but hopefully the benefits will outweigh this,” Postal Center Manager Deb Johnson said.
Johnson said moving buildings will make work more efficient and less costly. The larger warehouse layout of Fowler will allow all steps of mail production — printing, envelope stuffing, and package pick-up — to be in one location.
Sophomore Sierra Dilworth, a student worker at the postal center, said Fowler will provide much-needed space.
“In Moss, it’s like working in a small kitchen: no one has enough room,” Dilworth said.
The postal center has outgrown Moss, Johnson said.
“We get 15 bags of mail from the post office every day,” Johnson said. “That’s about 300 packages every day, just for students.”
The goal is to enable students to receive their packages more quickly. Currently, the staff scans in packages within four hours of receiving them, notifying students who receive packages by email.
The added space in Fowler will allow pallets to be brought directly into the center instead of moving individual boxes. This will save time and money, Johnson said.
The production center has also added three new presses to provide higher-quality printing.
“The whole goal is to make everything better,” Johnson said.
Johnson said she hopes the new location offers a more convenient and welcoming atmosphere. The larger lobby area means students won’t have to wait in long lines, which sometimes stretch out the door in Moss. The new counter in Fowler is more accessible, so workers won’t feel restricted by the small glass service window currently used in Moss.
This is the second change for package pick-ups in two years. The mail room in the Grewcock Student Union previously handled all student deliveries, but in 2019 the postal center took over package pick-up.
Although students can still use the Grewcock mail room to drop off and receive letters, they’ll need to walk across the street to retrieve their packages. The postal center will continue with the same hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The postal center staff asks that students be careful when crossing the parking lot to the Fowler building.
