CECILIA ENGBERT
STAFF WRITER
Coming soon to the Franciscan University of Steubenville mail center is a new system which will update and improve package pickup for students.
The installation of 75 large lockers in the J.C. Williams Center on the wall between the bookstore and the mail center will be in progress within the next two weeks. Once implemented, these lockers will serve as the new pickup location for student packages. The project is expected to be completed sometime during the first weeks of October.
Instead of the current process of collecting packages from the mail center, where students have to spend extra time standing in a line, this new method will eliminate the long wait and will enable students to pick up packages whenever they choose.
As before, students will receive a notification to their school emails alerting them that they have received a package. However, instead of picking it up from the mail center window, students will now be able to access their deliveries by using a code provided in the email to remove their package from the new lockers.
The lockers will be accessible at any time during the open hours in the J.C. Williams Center and will not be reliant on mail–center hours. There will, however, be a 48-hour time frame in which the packages can be picked up.
If the package is not removed by the student during this time, it will be taken out of the lockers and will then be available for pickup from the mail window during normal hours as before. Additionally, all oversized packages will still be available for pickup at the mail window.
Joseph Wallace, mail services manager at Franciscan University, said that this upcoming system of lockers is intended to improve the efficiency of customer service to the students. “We’re just trying to continue to keep things running smooth,” he said. “We really want to improve the service to the students.”
The mail center has been sorting and distributing an increasing number of packages over the years, and this new project is another part of the process of upgrading service. The idea is to make the process easier for both the mail–service employees and the students.
Although it will be an adjustment for students to learn how to use the new lockers, Wallace does not foresee any major issues in adapting to the new ways.
“I think for the most part our students are tech savvy,” said Wallace, “so when they start seeing the email with the code, they’ll know what to do. We’ll have signs up, (and) we’ll be here to help everyone.”