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The post office finds a new home
MBC students will no longer share a common post office

Multnomah's new post office is now located in the Student Commons. Student boxes are located in both the Commons and the dorms. "Students living in the dormitories are able to pick up their mail in the dorms," Lee Odell, mail department head, said. Students living off campus and in campus houses are retrieving their mail in the new post office in the Commons lobby. No one location on campus had the capacity to hold all 900 student mailboxes, Mr. Odell said.

In Memorial Dorm, the mailboxes are located where the nurse's waiting room is now. Women will enter the mailroom through the kitchen to collect their mail. In White Hall, men retrieve their mail in the hallway outside of the men's lounge. "The change will provide the best possible service for the students, faculty and staff," Lois Peterson, postal clerk for MBC, said.

The move was supposed to take place in early October. The new projected date for the move was pushed back to the first week of November. "Moving will almost definitely disrupt the mail service," Mr. Odell said. During October, many post office employees took vacations and days off, which has made the move more difficult.

Mrs. Peterson said that the new routine for sorting mail has yet to be established. The first sorting of the mail will occur in the Common's office. Then the mail workers will take the mail to the dorms where they will place it in the students' boxes. "So many things have to be done," Mr. Odell said. Sorting racks and new office furniture for the staff still need to be ordered and delivered. The staff still has to put names and numbers on boxes, move the package cabinet to the Student Commons, and get new faculty and staff bins. They also need to transfer the mail from the old to the new post office boxes, and distribute the new post office box keys.

Mr. Odell said he will miss watching students interact with one another. "So much social interaction between students when they get their mail" will be lost when the mailboxes are no longer in a central location, he said. Jen Strickler, an intercultural studies major, said she doesn't like the change. She regrets losing her "hang-out place." She also said, "It's going to clog up the [lunch] line." Rachael Melcher, a youth ministries major who lives off campus, likes the typeface of the new numbers. She also said, "It's easier to get to. You're already in the building for lunch or dinner or whatever."