"I have been told that I’m smart for bringing my rolling cart with me to pick up packages. The fact of the matter is, this is the only way I can take a 50-pound box back to my apartment." (Lily Miller/Opinion Editor)
In this article, I will discuss my qualms with the Rowan University mail room, but it’s important to me that I get one fact out of the way first. I love the people who work in the mail room. Every employee is thoughtful, dedicated, and incredibly helpful. While the hours and location may be tremendously inconvenient, the staff have been nothing but of assistance to me over the last year and some change, and I wouldn’t want anyone to go into this article thinking otherwise.
With that out of the way, I direct my attention to Rowan University itself. What is this schedule? The mail room is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. On paper, that doesn’t sound too bad. In reality, retrieving my packages has become a Sisyphean ordeal.
I have class every day starting at 9:30 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. on Fridays. From that is a chain of three to four classes each day, usually with a break around noon so I can eat lunch. Classes resume, with my last class of the day ending at 4:30 p.m., notably when the mail room closes.
In an ideal world, I would bite the bullet and just retrieve my package on the weekend. Unfortunately, that is not an option, because the mail room isn’t even open.
The mail room not being open on the weekend causes other problems, too. I’ve tracked many packages over the last year and watched one by one as they’re registered as “failed to deliver,” because the mail room isn’t even open to receive deliveries.
Now, not only can I not pick up my package on the weekend, but it won’t even be on the premises of Rowan University until the next delivery cycle.
Herein lies the overarching predicament. I have had to routinely decide if I want to eat lunch or pick up a package. Why? Because I have to pick up my packages on weekdays, and the mail room is located in a very convenient, ten-minute hike from my apartment.
This in itself isn’t that much of a problem. I’ve walked farther for longer. The problem is that I have to take a rolling cart with me. So now, there is the setup and teardown of the cart. Then there is the added time of walking back to my apartment with often very heavy packages.
I have been told that I’m smart for bringing my rolling cart with me to pick up packages. The fact of the matter is, this is the only way I can take a 50-pound box back to my apartment. I’m not sure families are prepared to send their students to college with a dolly or hand truck, but at this point, I’m thinking it’s a requirement.
To put the nail in the coffin, I discovered that my apartment building, The Whitney Center, used to have an operational mail room. In another universe, the lovely staff of the Student Center mail room could have been conveniently located right in my own building.
But no. Rowan has decided it’s better if they are relegated to the dungeon-esque basement of the Student Center, next to the empty husk of Prof’s place and across from the mildewy breeze of the laundry room.
Not only that, but the Whitney mail room was on ground level. Rowan could have also spared various delivery services from packing into the student center elevator with all of their packages all the time, and instead spread out their service area to include less-traveled regions with fewer changes in elevation.
Despite my humorous tone, this is a real problem. Having one mail room to serve the Rowan Boulevard apartments, The Whitney Center, Edgewood Park apartments, The Townhouse apartments, and the dormitories Chestnut, Evergreen, Magnolia, Mimosa, Mullica, and Willow is ludicrous.
Sure, for some, it could be considered a mild inconvenience, but for others, this is a glaring accessibility issue. If a student were to receive a package on the heavier side, such as many of mine have been, and they are not physically able to move it back to their apartment or dorm, what are they to do? Walking a heavy package across campus isn’t just a feat of strength, but endurance as well.
For some, such as myself, they also rely on the mailroom to retrieve personal belongings and necessities as they pursue living on their own for the first time. My parents can’t just drive down to Rowan when I need something, so instead they mail me packages. When I lived in a dorm room, I also got many deliveries since I couldn’t just leave campus whenever I wanted–I did not have a car.
College living is not known for being very convenient, and I wouldn’t expect it to be. That said, the mail room situation is rectifiable should Rowan take the time to hire more wonderful staff and reopen building-specific mail rooms. Of course, the solution to many university problems is to hire more staff, and I haven’t yet seen that advice be taken to heart. In the meantime, I will continue to roll my packages home and watch as others struggle to do the same.
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