It is almost Valentine’s Day and on-campus residents at Montclair State University are eagerly expecting a special something from that special someone.
For students living on campus, getting mail can sometimes be a bit of a hassle. If it is not an Amazon purchase, it requires a more complicated process. When students expect a delivery, they sit by their computers and browse through their emails, looking for a message from Central Receiving notifying them their packages have been delivered.
Once the notification comes in, they rush over to Postal Services across from Red Hawk Deck, only to find that Central Receiving is no longer located there. They sigh with a feeling of defeat when they realize that it is going to be more than just a long walk to retrieve their package.
Over the summer Central Receiving was moved from its central location. While the old Central Receiving location was still a long hike across campus for the majority of students and faculty, it was more convenient than its new location at 147 Clove Road, near Lot 60 before the ramp to get on Route 46.
What used to be an excursion across campus now requires waiting for a shuttle to get to the new location, which is about 1.5 miles away from the previous one. It is also approximately a half-hour walk from the old location. In reality, it could take at least an hour for students to pick up their packages and return to their residence halls, which is anything but central.
The campus community was notified about the location change that took effect back in June of 2018, but with the implementation of Amazon Locker delivery at Montclair State, many students have been steering away from ordering on other websites because of the easy access.
An email was sent out to the campus community back in June 2018 about the new location of Postal Services.
There are a handful of students who benefit from the switch. Residents who live in The Village apartments are the closest to the new location and can easily pick up their packages in a reasonable amount of time, but there are other members of the campus community who are unsatisfied with the new location, including many faculty members who send and receive packages from their offices.
Faculty members do have an option to have their packages picked up, but with the hundreds of packages that come to and from campus, many packages get misplaced or lost. Just imagine lugging around a giant box back to your dorm after traveling more than a mile to the new mailing location.
What the campus community wants to see happen is a change to mail delivery as a whole. The process should not involve a cross-campus trip just to pick up a small package.
Central Receiving is now inside the building located at Lot 60.
Olivia Kearns | The Montclarion
For students who live on campus, they each have a mailbox in their respective residence halls that many rarely use. This is because the purpose for the mailboxes is for cards and letters only.
While most mailboxes are small, many students believe they have a lot of potential and could make picking up their packages more convenient.
They hope one day a long walk and shuttle ride to Central Receiving can become just a short walk downstairs in their dorm buildings.
For now, faculty members and students living at Montclair State are still adjusting to the new location of Central Receiving. The campus community hopes that this change is temporary and that more improvements are underway.
Students and faculty are very pleased with the new advancements of the Amazon Lockers as an alternative to Central Receiving, but there is a lot that can be done to make package pickup more central and convenient.
