By Matt Parks, Anna Rich and Mike Myers, Viking Fusion Videographers
As classes roll around, Berry College students and faculty will find themselves adjusting to a brand-new school year, and with that comes a few minor changes to their daily routines. Starting August 1st, Berry College began implementing a new mailing system and replacing PO Boxes with a virtual mailing system.
The manager of Berry College Mail Services, Tammi Freeman, discovered this virtual mail system in 2017 while visiting Vanderbilt University, in search for a way to improve Berry’s mailing efficiency.
“Primarily, it’s a space saving technique. I have tracked our income in mail volume for students over the past two school years and I have determined that of approximately 2,000 mail boxes only about 75 students come to collect their mail per day.” Tammi explained.
Tammi realized that the traditional PO Box system wasn’t up to par with the demands of Berry’s student and faculty population, and by implementing the virtual mailbox system, the Post Office workers were given more room to work. “By switching to a virtual mailbox, that’s going to allow us to, in the future, tear out the mailboxes, better use that space … and we’re also interested in adding some new technology.”
Moving forward, students will receive an email notifying them of any mail or packages that may be waiting to be picked up. For any students with reservations about the new system, Emmi Lossasso, the Student Supervisor at Berry Post Office, shared some advice: “There’s been a lot of confusion that people have had, and a lot of the responses have been questions that have actually been answered in the emails, so what I would suggest is that people check their emails and read through them so that they know what’s going on with the changes..”