Wayne State College new mailroom for its new mailing system for students that live on campus and campus clubs and organizations is located in the lower level of the Student Center.

Tiffany Dearstone, Student Activities and Student Center director, oversaw the implementation of the mailroom and helps manage and supervise the students working there. Dearstone said that with the new mailroom system, she wanted to offer something more accessible for students and be able to provide them with better customer service. They are always looking for new avenues for students’ success and to make their time and experience here at WSC worthwhile.

“Everything we do is technology based,” said Dearstone.

Outside the mailroom is an electronic locker that operates through a barcode system. Each package that arrives is scanned into the computer, given a barcode, and placed into one of the 60 lockers. The locker system includes three different sizes of small, medium, and large.

Dearstone said she is planning on adding an additional five column of lockers due to the large number of packages the mailroom receives. She said the mailroom averages about 75 to 105 packages a day.

Students that received a package will get an email from WildCatmail with barcode to unlock the locker that holds their package. Students will then have 48 hours to pick up their package from the locker system. If a student is unable to pick it up in that timeframe, the package will be taken out of its locker and stored in the back of the mailroom on one of the shelves.

Students will then have to go to the front desk of the mailroom, show the mailroom desk worker their student ID and sign in order to get their package. The mailroom is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and the Student Center is open 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekends for students to get their packages from the lockers.

In the back room, there are cabinets for holding mail and packages for students and campus clubs and organizations. There is a refrigerator for storing anything that comes in the mail that is perishable, such as flowers, medication or food. A recycling tote is available for any students that want to donate the empty cardboard of their packages to be reused.

Dearstone said one of the exciting things about the new mailroom is five new positions of employment have opened up on campus and that she hired and helped trained them over the summer. Student Jeremiah Woods, who is also a Student Activities Board representative on the Student Senate, said Dearstone came to him while he was on campus for the summer and said he should apply for the mailroom.

Woods said he was one of the first students trained for the position and he was grateful, for it was something new and different that could be put on his résumé. Mailroom workers will wear gloves and aprons when sorting through packages as many of the packages can be dirty.

Morning shift workers check the lockers for any expired packages and put them behind the mailroom in their designated shelf. The worker then begins sorting through mail, putting packages in the lockers and mail in student files on the shelves.

Due to COVID-19, there is precautions the mailroom is taking to keep students safe. Woods said workers are taking extreme precaution by wiping down and sanitizing the desk counter and everything behind the mailroom, door handles, cabinets, refrigerator and computer equipment.

Dearstone said they spray down the mailroom environment multiple times a day with a cleaner that is supposed to kill the virus. Workers also sanitize the lockers and the locker system’s keypad.
The main reason behind the new mailing system is due to the outdated model of the previous system. David McMahan, dean of students, who helped run the old system said that previously the mail would be dropped off in a mailbox right outside the front of each residence hall and a desk attendant would go unlock the mailbox to put the standard mail, such as letters, into individual 4 x 4 mailboxes inside the residence hall.

Students were required to pick up their packages from the Student Affairs office in Residence Life, where it would be logged into a notebook sheet and placed in an alphabetized shelf in the back.

There were problems in this system as students could only previously pick up their package from the Students Affairs office on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. They also had problems with the mailboxes in the dorms, as there wasn’t always enough for every student living in the dorm and there were concerns about the conditions that boxes were in.

“There was a question of the number of mailboxes overall, and the condition of mailboxes were in,” McMahan said. “For instance, the mailboxes in Anderson Hall, you had to meet with somebody at the desk in order for them to get your mail because the locks on the front boxes were at shape where somebody could break into them. They were just at that age.”

McMahan said that he does believe that the newer system is more secured because there are fewer hands in it. Where instead of having seven different residence halls managing it, WSC now has one mailroom being overseen, and the computer system gives us the ability to know when the mail comes in and when it leaves.