Tucked away in the basement of Holy Cross Hall in the old mail room lies the newly updated Saint Mary’s Student Package Center. Previously, Saint Mary’s students could find their delivered packages with their hall’s respective front desk employees, but the fall semester changed that, making a shift to a more centralized process of mail and package services.
The project’s lead, Taryn Van Horn, assistant director of student wellbeing and case management for Residential Life at the College, explained the shift in package management from front desk and hall directors to the new center.
“We’re looking for a more efficient way for students to get their packages. Sometimes, when they are brought to the front desk, it’s hard to keep them all staffed. We want to have one central location where all the packages are coming to, where we could always have someone there,” Van Horn explained.
The Student Package Center is a result of a large planning process that included support from the Office of Residence Life and correspondence with outside mailing companies.
“It took about maybe a year to find out a location and then this past summer we got word that we would be able to open in the fall,” Van Horn said. The system of processing packages has expanded to accommodate the campus’s demand for package fulfillment. Student workers senior Vanesa Barajas and sophomore Emily Morales described their day-to-day responsibilities operating the mail room. “Packages come from everywhere — Amazon, FedEx, UPS — and our job is to log them into the system that we have, organize them by last name, count all the inventory we have and keep track of all the packages,” Morales explained.
“We use the Notify app and website. When we get a package, we can scan it,” Barajas added. “So you know how many packages come, tracking numbers and the person’s address. It captures all that data so it takes a little less time.”
Students across the Saint Mary’s campus are continuing to adjust to the change. “I think the way that they’re doing it is really structured, and it’s good over there. The girls that work there know what’s going on, and they're doing a great job,” junior Ella Martin said.
Editor’s note: Martin is a photographer for The Observer.
The center operates Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from noon to 6 p.m.
