Since the beginning of the school year, the mailrooms at the University of Connecticut have seemed to have severely underestimated the amount of orders and sorting ahead of them.
The problem first arose at Putnam mailroom, which dispenses packages to Garrigus Suites, Hilltop Residence Halls and Hilltop Apartments. There, the assistant director of building services, Tracy Reed, spoke to Daily Campus reporter Kyle Constable, and blamed the problems on faulty software. The workers in the mailroom were forced to log packages by hand until Tuesday when the scanner was repaired.
Recently, the problems plaguing the mailrooms have seemed to spread to the rest of campus. The residents of Connecticut Commons, West Residence Halls and McMahon, who all get their mail from the McMahon mailroom, have also experienced difficulty. There is a general lag in the delivery date of packages to when the students get the packages themselves. Many of these packages are textbooks and academic material. The other mailrooms around UConn are also having problems sorting through the mail and getting it out to the students.
Three weeks into the semester, many students have yet to receive their textbooks. The first wave of midterms is fast approaching, and many students have yet to start the readings and do assignments that have been assigned from day one.
Although the mailrooms do experience a lag at the beginning of each semester, it has seldom lasted until the third week of school. Several questions have yet to be answered: how did the administration not expect the flood of packages in the beginning of the year? Historically, this has been a constant. The next: why were students not given notice of the situation?
If students were given notice of situation, the mail orders could have been intercepted early and sent to their homes or simply, a friend’s off-campus house. However, as UConn was not able to provide the simple service of a campus-wide email, many packages are being held just out of the students’ reach. This somehow allows for an increase in sales by the UConn Co-Op. Many students, who desperately need their textbooks, turn to the on-campus bookstore to be able to complete assignments.
Despite the unfortunate circumstances, UConn has not handled the situation well. Some may say that they exacerbated the situation by waiting so long to tell students that there are problems in sorting the mail. In the email that was eventually sent out, it came with a post-script that they are also hiring, which has done far from comfort the students who are still waiting for textbooks.