It may feel as if the new Amazon locker located across from the Atrium randomly appeared one day, and that’s because in a way, it did. Fitting where the bookstore’s rental return bin formerly sat, the locker now provides a quick way for students to receive their Amazon packages.
According to Dr. Michael Yankovich, vice president for operational and administrative integration, Amazon came to campus during a recent weekend to install the locker at no cost to the school, and the location became operational shortly after. Students were picking up packages from the locker as soon as three days after its installation.
Yankovich explained that the location is serving as an interim solution to “enhance convenience a little bit for students” in light of the Residence Life Mailroom moving from the academic building to the College Park Apartments area a few years ago.
“The benefit of the Amazon locker is it should be really easy for people to access because it’s right in this upper part of campus,” Yankovich said in an interview with The Ramapo News.
The locker offers another layer of convenience with reduced waiting times for packages. Yankovich explained that all packages used to go through a “convoluted process” where they were first delivered to Central Receiving, sorted, delivered to the mailroom and checked in for students to pick up. Now, students will be able to access their Amazon packages as soon as they’re delivered.
Yankovich estimated that the school receives Amazon deliveries around eight times per day, so the locker will also lift some of the burden off of his team who handle student packages.
While the locker is listed publicly on Amazon’s website, the listing warns that it’s “not a public location” and requires users to check a box confirming they have access to it. Technically, anyone beyond Ramapo can check the box and have a package delivered, but Yankovich is not worried, noting that there are three other public locker locations nearby in Mahwah and Ramsey.
“That’s something that we’re gonna monitor, if we notice too many people who aren’t associated with the college delivering their packages, and that’s something that we talked with Amazon about that we can check with them on,” he said. “I really don’t anticipate that being a problem just because it is such an inconvenient location.”
The addition may be beneficial for students who use Amazon, but this leaves all other kinds of packages to continue being handled via the mailroom. Yankovich shared, however, that the Linden Hall remodel — which will begin this summer and is projected to take three years to complete — should eventually solve the issue of the mailroom’s location.
“Once Linden Hall is renovated, some of the functions and offices that are in C- and D-Wing… [are] going to move up to Linden,” he said. “We’re going to have space available… and we’re going to move Residence Life offices and the student mailroom back to the central part of campus.”
rgatherc@ramapo.edu
Featured photo by Jenna Barnes
