University Housing service desks processed 71,082 packages and mail for distribution to residents in fall 2020, according to Kathleen Ruppe, the director of housing operations. Some students are voicing frustrations over prolonged mail processing times, and University Housing is exploring options to improve efficiency.
Ares Lin, a first-year studying biochemistry, said depending on service desks for timely processing of urgent mail is stressful. According to Lin, on multiple occasions, he has waited up to five days for mail to be processed at his service desk after receiving notice of delivery to the University.
“I remember one time, I needed my calculator charger because I had lost it, and obviously I needed it for a test,” Lin said. “I couldn’t even risk sending it to the school because it probably wouldn’t arrive on time.”
Ruppe said mail clerks typically process mail in the afternoon, after the United States Postal Service (USPS) mail is processed through the central University mail facility and distributed to service desks. However, some service desks receive more mail than others, and desk supervisors are responsible for determining when mail processing is necessary.
“It’s a little bit of a balance because you don’t want to hire mail clerks if there’s no mail there for them to process, but you want to keep it moving and keep the mail being processed for students,” Ruppe said.
Ruppe said it can be challenging to account for unpredictable volumes of mail.
“Some days are just heavier than others; there’s no reason, it’s just, ‘Wow, lots of mail today,’” Ruppe said. “I can’t say what’s happening in the supply chain all the way to campus that may have delayed something, and all of a sudden they have a big mail delivery for today, and they didn’t yesterday. That’s hard to know and predict, and we just have to meet it when it arrives and do the best we can to process as fast as we can.”
Ruppe said there tends to be more mail at the beginning of the school year and after holidays. If there is an unprecedented amount of mail to be sorted, desk supervisors can offer extra shifts for mail clerks.
Lin said he would like to see service desks operate 24 hours a day, which was typical before COVID-19. However, Ruppe said this system wasn’t ideal, especially for the well-being of student employees.
According to Ruppe, University Housing is considering strategies to make the mail sorting process more efficient, including creating “mail hubs” to process mail. Some service desks do not have space to retain large volumes of mail, and designating a special processing facility could relieve service desks of this task while making processing more productive.
Other options include establishing Amazon lockers on campus, but Ruppe said this is a complicated process and would not improve processing time for packages delivered through USPS or other carriers such as FedEx.
Additionally, Ruppe said University Housing is making an effort to appeal to students as an employer.
“We’ve also increased our pay, so we’re now paying $10 an hour, and we weren’t before,” Ruppe said. “So, that, we’re hoping, is attractive to our staff to stay with us and for others to be interested in working, either as a [community assistant] or a mail clerk. Staffing is always a challenge, and we face that as well, but we’re hoping some of those adjustments are attractive to students who might want to work with us.”
