I have often heard the Abbey Church referred to as the heart of Saint Anselm College. However, I would like to shed light on what I refer to as the central nervous system of the college: the campus mail center. This office is responsible for all incoming and outgoing mail for students, faculty, staff, athletics, and admissions.

I had the opportunity to go behind the scenes of the mail center with Marc Johnson, Mail Center Supervisor, and Eric Heenan, Mail Center Assistant. 

While the mail center receives 300 pieces of mail per day on average, there are busy seasons in which the employees must double down on their efforts to keep mail flowing in and out. 

Heenan said that October is their busiest month. “We’ve heard multiple times students saying, ‘I can’t get one package or just get one costume. I’m going to four different parties so I need four different costumes,’” he explained.

Johnson said that this October the mail center received over one thousand packages in a single day. This topped the previous record of 762 packages in one day.

The monthly package data from the mail center shows an overall increase in student purchasing. Just looking at the month of October, the mail center received 6728 packages in 2021. In 2022, this number shot up by 1,512 packages to a grand total of 8,260. This year, it increased again by 496 packages. 

Currently, the mail center uses a system with two kiosks and 286 lockers for students to receive packages at their earliest convenience. However, Johnson said he has put in a proposal to add more medium and large lockers to keep up with the increasing demand.

According to Johnson, the students dubbed “heavy hitters” receive anywhere from three to seven packages per day. One senior has received over 600 packages in the last three and a half years as a student. 

The mail center staff works diligently to keep the system running smoothly, sometimes working extra hours to let nursing majors get their mail before or after clinical, not to mention coming in on weekends and school breaks. They truly value the students here, calling the 15 who work in the office “co-workers, not student workers.” 

For all the work that they do, the least we students can do is check our emails (including junk and spam folders) and pick up our packages in a timely manner.