Housing and Dining is starting a new package system that will notify students of the status of their package electronically and allow them to swipe their student identification card to receive their packages.
The goal of the system, according to Chris Moody, associate director of Housing and Dining programs, is to create a "paperless and tracking accountability system." Moody said the system will be instituted "absolutely within the next month."
Currently, packages from the U.S. Postal Service are delivered to the front desk and paper package slips are distributed to students in their mailboxes.
Moody said under the new system students will receive notification through their AU e-mail account that their package has been delivered. Additionally, once the package has been delivered, students will be able to swipe their cards to receive their package rather than signing the package slip receipt.
Moody said he wants "the same high quality response for our students with U.S. mail as we do with trackable pieces."
Many students have expressed frustration with the current system,
"Looking into the package room, it looks really inefficient," Laura Krachman, a freshman in the School of International Service, said. "The RA's can't find the packages. They need to look again at how they organize the package room."
According to Moody, the new system may reduce the long package lines in some residence halls, such as Anderson/Centennial, because there will be "less staff time going into creating the package slips" and less time spent managing the package room, he said.
Some students feel that the new system will not necessarily alleviate the problems in the package system.
"It does usually take a while for them to find the package slips, but package slips aren't the problem," Krachman said. "Standing in line is the problem."
Mary McKee, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences, said she waited in package lines for a total of one hour and 15 minutes this past week. However, she said, the new system may help solve some of the other problems in the current package system.
"It's really good because you won't lose package slips and it will eliminate those stupid books you have to flip through," McKee said. "It won't stop them from not finding packages, though."
The Anderson/Centennial residence hall does not have a 24-hour package service that allows students to get their items at any time of the day. Instead, Anderson and Centennial residents have set time slots for when they can claim their packages.
Moody said that because the mail room is separate from the front desk in Anderson, having 24-hour package services would mean the desk would always have to be double staffed, as it is necessary to have someone at the front desk at all times for I.D. checks, accepting deliveries and other activities.
The long lines and student complaints led Moody and Housing and Dining to look at the system to try and fix the problem.
According to Moody, Housing and Dining took inventory of the amount of packages received in the fall 2006 semester as compared to past semesters, and found that the number of packages had tripled. Specifically, Moody noted that the number of packages at the beginning of the semester led to lines because students were ordering books and other items specific to the beginning of the school year.
"Looking at past fall hours, we plan on having extended hours that aren't just night hours," Moody said, referring to the long package lines.
Moody said the lines are generally limited to the first 20 to 30 minutes of package hours.
Other students, such as Meredith Jachowicz, a freshman in CAS, said the long lines prevented her from picking up her packages, because the Resident Assistants cut off the line at the end of package hours, despite that there were still students in line.
"After I'd been waiting in line for 25 to 30 minutes, they came out and cut off the line three people ahead of me," Jachowicz said. "There were still 10 to 15 people behind me. I was so mad!"
The packages Jachowicz was waiting for contained her textbooks, so not getting them prevented her from doing work, she said.
"I had books being sent to me and I could've done work that night if they'd given me my package."
Eagle Staff Writer Ali Goldstein contributed to this article.
