Pitches:
Student Access – Weather it’s the WiFi not working or struggles with access to printing, UNE has a problem with student access to basic necessities. Why are there frequent struggles? Can these services be improved in any way?
UNE Mailroom – It seems a lot of students on campus have difficulties with the mail rooms. Either they don’t have their package ready or are closed during their open service hours. Is this a time issue or struggles with staff? Let’s get down to the bottom of why.
Early Draft: UNE Mailroom
People to interview –
Student mail room workers
Students who receive mail
Head of the mail department
Details to find out or research –
Hours
Number of staff on a given day
Policies/regulations
Troubleshooting
What working at a facility consists of
Challenges at the start of the project –
Workers willingness to express their opinions
Ignoring basic suggestions
Going between student mail rooms and the security/mail offices
How can the University of New England improve its student Mail Rooms?
The East Residential Mail Room at the University of New England in Maine operates as a place where upperclassmen go to receive packages and letters. Typically after receiving an email notifying a package has arrived, students can either give their name to the front desk for larger boxes or use a school issued key to get into their PO Box for letters. While these emails offer an ideal pick-up time for a package, it may not correlate with when the mail rooms are open. The emails further explains the East and Avila residential mail rooms are open Monday through Friday subject to student work-study availability. This means while the facilities are open during the weekdays, there may not be anyone there to handle the packages. This results in students having to come back later to receive their mail.
Another issue that occurs is personal schedules conflicting with open hours. The mailrooms typically close at 4:30 which means students with a full day of classes may miss their chance to get packages. This can cause issues for classes if a textbook is required but the student can’t complete their assignment due to the lack of a book. Sophomore, Lily Hagen (she/her), who’s studying business, shares her experience with the East Mail Room.
“My email said my package was ready at 11:30 so I walked over at that time to pick it up and no one was there. But the email said it opens at 8”.
Developing/Workshop Draft:
UNE Mail Room Struggles
Students struggle to get their packages in a timely fashion through the school.
By: Sarah Bedore
Biddeford, ME – At the University of New England, the multiple student mail rooms operate as a place where classmen go to receive personal packages and letters. In the East Residential Hall, students share their names with the front desk for larger boxes or key into their PO Box for small mail. Notifying emails sent to all students offer an ideal pick-up time for their package and open hours. The email further explains all mail rooms are open Monday through Friday subject to student work-study availability.
Senior Juliann Lapirere, who studying Environmental Science has worked across campus in the mail rooms under a work-study since her sophomore year. She helps distribute and label packages, and sort deliveries when they come in. Lapirere values her job stating,
“It’s a wonderful thing, especially when I can get homework done during a longer shift.”
The mail room isn’t always busy so it’s a great environment to get both types of work done. However, operating the mail rooms isn’t always easy as the office is understaffed which affects the timeliness of distributing packages. She explained the struggle to find workers at the beginning of the school year and even then there are some hours where no one is available.
“Last year, I remember, I would come in at two o’clock after a shipment, and there was no one there before me, and I’d have a line of people waiting on unsorted boxes.”
Shipments come in at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. which can cause some back up with students. Lapirere expressed there should at least be one person at the desk at all times however, there have been a few occasions where workers failed to come in for their shift! Not only is this unprofessional but results in students having to come back later to receive their mail. Communication is a major factor in the functionality of the mail rooms on the worker’s side. Besides shift scheduling, there’s the occasional mislabeled package which causes all sorts of problems for the receiving student, shipping company, and school.
Other issues that students experience are their personal schedules conflicting with open hours. Since the mail room closes mid-afternoon, some students with a full day of classes may miss their chance to get packages. This can cause issues in classes if a textbook assignment is required but can’t be completed. Lapirere opened up about a rumor that may solve this problem for future students. The school recognizes that its mail system is a bit outdated and could be improved. Students would be able to use their ID’s to tap into mail facilities to get their packages. Similar to the process now, students would have to scan their package before leaving to ensure it’s in their name and to keep track of pick-ups. UNE wants to improve the mail process and this change would be an amazing upgrade for future students.
Peer Review Draft:
UNE Mail Room Struggles
Students Struggle With The Timeliness of Getting Their Packages
Sarah Bedore
At the University of New England, the multiple student mail rooms operate as a place where classmen go to receive personal packages and letters. In the East Residential Hall, students share their names with the front desk for larger boxes or key into their PO Box for small mail. Notifying emails sent to all students offer an ideal pick-up time for their package and open hours. The email further explains all mail rooms are open Monday through Friday, 8 to 4:30, subject to student work-study availability.
Senior Juliann Lapirere, who studying Environmental Science has worked across campus in the mail rooms under a work-study since her sophomore year. She helps distribute and label packages, and sort deliveries when they come in. Lapirere values her job stating,
“It’s a wonderful thing, especially when I can get homework done during a longer shift.”
The mail room isn’t always busy so it’s a great environment to get both types of work done. However, operating the space isn’t always easy as the office is understaffed which affects the timeliness of distributing packages. Lapirere explained the struggle to find workers at the beginning of the school year and even then there are some hours where no one is available.
“Last year, I remember, I would come in at two o’clock after a shipment, and there was no one there before me, and I’d have a line of people waiting on unsorted boxes.”
Truck shipments come in at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. carrying around 30 packages per mail room. Organizing this can take some time which can cause back up with students. Lapirere expressed there should at least be one person at the desk at all times however, there have been a few occasions where workers failed to come in for their shift! Despite employing six people per mail room, no-shows can result in students having to come back later to receive their mail.
Audrey Kamen, a sophomore studying Applied Exercise Science on a Pre PA track shared some of her challenges when getting mail.
“In the beginning of the year, I have to order a lot of textbooks. When I get an email saying I have a package in, it’s really frustrating when it’s not ready and sets back my studying.”
Other issues that students experience are their personal schedules conflicting with open hours. Since the mail room closes mid-afternoon, some students with a full day of classes may miss their chance to get packages. This can cause issues in class if a textbook assignment is required but can’t be completed. However there may be a solution coming to UNE in the future.
Lapirere opened up about a rumor that may solve this problem for students. The school recognizes that its mail system is a bit outdated and could be improved. Students would be able to use their ID’s to tap into mail facilities to get their packages. Similar to the process now, students would have to scan their package before leaving to ensure it’s in their name and to keep track of pick-ups. UNE wants to improve the mail process and this change would be an amazing upgrade for future students.
Communication is a major factor in the functionality of the mail rooms. Besides shift scheduling, there’s the occasional mislabeled package which causes all sorts of problems for the receiving student, shipping company, and school. Although the job is work-study only, hiring flyers to notify students of the position could aid the understaffed office.
You can reach the Mailroom Department by going to Department of Campus Services website. The email is mail_services@une.edu.
Workshop Experience Reflection:
My article was revised on Tuesday the 5th and received a lot of great feedback and improvements. I think increasing the storytelling and spice aspect will help add character and keep it interesting. I can also improve lead to highlight the slow mailroom and the more relevant issue. Professor Jesse suggested questioning the delay in packages and diving deeper into the background of the problem. Essentially, I need to angle my article to a specific rather than general information. Providing more context like statistics, number of employment, and number of packages can help give clarification and get to the bottom of the real issues in the mailroom. I can also expand on quotes and interview such as head of mailroom’s statements on truck shipments. There’s a lot of improvements to make but review from my peers and gaining their perspective on my article really helped.
Feature Reflection:
Reflecting on my feature project I felt I was well organized, taking a lot of notes but could have focused more on putting more information into the project. For the drafting project, I referenced my recording and handwritten notes of the interview. The interview process was casual and informative. Laipree shared a lot of good information that made the process easy. However, you don’t always get all the information the first time around, I later emailed her to ask further questions about the number of packages and employee count. With all the information I was able to start my revising process. Reviewing it in class was super helpful and getting opinions from the class as readers corrected the things I was missing like context and connecting my topics. Some students suggested I needed to apply a storytelling angle; it’s a good article with a topic that frustrates a lot of students but it needed some spice to keep it attractive. The workshop was a great way to see other students’ approaches and how I could better develop mine. A big takeaway for me was focusing on the topic of the article and not straying away. Sometimes there can be so much information that the writing moves away from the main topic but it’s important to focus it all back to one commonality. When I revised my final draft I found myself reorganizing how my article was structured. Some of the information like mail room hours should be earlier in the article. Since a big part of the issue with the mailroom is that they’re understaffed, I needed to make it clear that it’s a work-study-only job. Not all students who need an on-campus job have work-study so that limits the mailroom hiring capacity. Overall, spending the time in class revising our articles as a group and sharing and comparing feedback helped strengthen my own features.
