For almost a year now, the Dickinson HUB boxes at the underground have been out of service. I remember coming in to my freshman year and spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to properly enter my code into my little golden slot for letters. 

My first semester was always nice because I would go and check the HUB boxes only to be surprised with letters from family members and friends and also tiny notes from programs I had worked with on campus, such as the CommServ and also from my first year mentor. I even remember my first year mentor on the first week of school sending a birthday card to my HUB box, along with a small birthday treat. It was small stuff like that that made me appreciate the small surprises that the HUB boxes had to offer. 

However, when they removed them and centered all letters to be picked up at the package pick-up office. For me, it is annoying that we have to take a few minutes out of our time to sign for a letter that I wouldn’t have to sign for otherwise. Not only that, but it is further along in the HUB. It is a hike if you’re coming from the spiral staircase and if you go there after classes end, there might be as many as twenty people in line with only two computers to handle everyone. If they just moved the letters back to the original HUB boxes, about half of that line could be eliminated. 

One of the only benefits I see of the current system for letters is that students get notifications for when a letter gets received for you. It was something that wasn’t there when the HUB boxes were in use and it was kind of refreshing. Also, some people wouldn’t check their mailboxes, and sometimes letters would get left behind. But this is basically the same thing as checking a mailbox at your own house. Why remove it if it is something that we will have to get used to once we get our own homes and jobs?

Overall, I call for mail services to push for the HUB box system to be modified and that the original system for letters to be restored to students.