Abby Derkson/Winonan
Most students feel excitement or relief when they receive a letter or a package.
Between cards from family members and books that arrive just on time, many students have positive experiences with campus mail.
But what about those who don’t?
What if there is damage on a package? Or a letter vanishes? Or, worse, what if mail has been tampered with?
For some Winona State University students, receiving mail on campus has been a frustrating or stressful experience.
Senior Michelle Johnson has experienced some stressful moments due to something going wrong with the mail.
When she lived in Tau Hall her freshman year, Johnson frequently had problems with her mail.
“There was more than one Michelle Johnson in the building,” she said. “Our mail often got mixed up.”
Mixups like the one that happened to Johnson happen for a variety of reasons and can be a fairly common mistake.
When dealing with this case of mistaken identity, accountability often falls on the student who loses the package and the accidental recipient, according to Housing and Residence Life director Paula Scheevel.
“We rely on the honesty of the individual student to get it back to us,” she said.
But Johnson’s grievances went beyond a simple mix up.
“Sometimes things would be missing in the mail. I had a letter that had some cold medicine in it, and it got to me completely slashed open and there was a post-it saying ‘This wasn’t us,’” she said. “And that was it.”
In the past, when students received a package, they would receive email notification and pick up their packages at the front desk with their IDs. The pickup would then be logged into the system.
While this method worked, there were some problems. In instances like the one Johnson experienced, the housing office was unable to provide documentation showing that damage to a package was not their fault.
Scheevel described a recent incident that inspired the new change to using packaging slips. A student’s package had been forwarded to the student’s home address, but arrived with visible damage.
The housing office believed they were not responsible for the damage, but had no documentation to prove it. Because of that, they implemented a new system of packaging slips, where the damage can be noted and logged properly.
The packaging slips help the housing office keep documentation on deliveries and damages. Desk assistants give a copy of the packaging slip to residence hall and another copy to the student when he or she picks up a package.
This system, Scheevel said, has helped both the housing office and students stay accountable.
“We’ve been able to investigate more quickly because we have more information, more documentation,”
Scheevel said. “The trail is easier to follow. If there is a problem, we can get it resolved quicker.”
Scheevel said that if students are concerned about the status or condition of their packages, they should contact the front desk immediately. From there the housing office checks the packaging slip and other documentation. If the housing office determines they are not at fault, they will refer the student to the post office or the carrier.
However, a student may encounter problems at the post office, too. Johnson, who had recently been having problems with her mail after moving off campus, said that the system is far from perfect.
“When I filed a claim on a parcel I was supposed to receive,” Johnson said, “they sent me a survey. They didn’t do anything else about it. No phone call, no contact, just a survey.”
