Earlier this summer, Mike Hurd was expecting a new debit card from his parents that has yet to arrive because of alleged mail backups for on-campus students.

“It’s frustrating,” the Orion sophomore said.

After the spring semester ends, mail delivered to the residence halls must be processed for former residents.

“It literally varies from day to day,” Kesseler Residence Hall Director Chad Garland said. “There’s no consistency.”

Federal regulation states first-class mail must get forwarded to the recipient, but bulk mail such as junk and advertisements do not.

Backups happen in the first week of the summer between finals and the beginning of session I, or if the designated sorter gets sick and there is no replacement.

Garland said almost every piece of mail is forwarded and put back into bundles within the 24 hours of the initial delivery.

Starting in May, there had been some complaints from residents that the mail was not arriving soon enough.

The majority of the grievances were verbal, without any documentation, Garland said.

“That’s the problem, no one wants to give us specifics,” Garland said. “It seems to be more of a perception that students aren’t getting mail more quickly that leads to a misunderstanding on how the mail is processed.”

Garland said misconceptions happen when people pass the mail room and see bags of mail without knowing whether it has been sorted.

“The perception was that it was backed up all the time and that’s just not true,” Garland said.

He said properly addressed mail for current students goes into one pile, while mail for former students that needs to be processed is part of another.

“We want to get everyone their mail as quickly as possible,” Garland said. “It’s the same process every summer and we’ll work with a student if something is lost.”

Because this has been a reoccurring problem, Garland and the post office are taking steps to improve the process.

It is important for students expecting mail to make sure they have filled out a forwarding mail card if they have moved. The forms are not available online, but are passed out to the residence halls toward the end of each semester.

“If they don’t fill out a forward card then the mail comes back to us,” Mount Pleasant Post Office employee Pam Behrend said.

In response to the situation this summer, Garland is asking students living on campus to also have senders write “summer” on the front bottom of the envelope to help with the sorting process.

“We’re trying to get the word out,” Garland said.

Garland said more help will be hired toward the end of the summer if the mail gets too far behind.

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