During the weeks preceding and following student move-in, United Parcel Service packages have not been sent to college houses --as many people might prefer -- but rather to two trailers, one stationed behind Harnwell College House and the other in front of the Quadrangle.
For many students, the decision has been a major cause for complaint.
"It's just very inconvenient," College sophomore Laura Michalak said.
The decision to re-route the packages was made approximately five years ago for the purpose of curbing the high volume of large packages that are sent to students during the move-in period, which lasts approximately six weeks from the start of early move-in.
"It made more sense to ... keep them in a place that was larger and [could handle] the constant influx of packages," Associate Director of Operations and Communications Nancy McCue said.
"Especially in recent years with students shipping large numbers of parcels ... our mail facilities were not appropriate [for] the volume we experienced at the beginning of [the] school year," McCue added.
Students have found the trailer locations hard to find.
"I don't recall anyone letting me know UPS was in this nondescript trailer," Michalak said, noting that she has had to drag heavy packages back to her room in Hamilton College House.
According to Gordan Rickards, associate director of security and contracts, information detailing the mailing facility was included in move-in mailings, and an attempt was made to increase notification around campus.
There are "four times the amount of signs" this year compared to last year, Rickards said, noting that last year many students were unaware of the trailers' locations.
However, many students have failed to receive proper notices about packages that are either in the trailers or in their college house package rooms, due to a malfunction in the mail system that does not recognize the upenn.edu component of many student e-mail addresses.
While the mail system records e-mail package alerts as having been sent and received, students are left without any notification of when their packages have arrived.
Though Rickards acknowledged that the University mail service is "still trying to get to the bottom of it," he hopes to have the situation remedied shortly.
For now, many students, such as College sophomore Miriam Hoffman, have resorted to tracking their packages via phone or Internet.
"I had a package sent to me, [and my dad] called me and told me [it arrived], and I picked it up the same day," Hoffman said.
She still has not received an e-mail notification from Penn's mail service.
Despite the temporary inconvenience, Rickards said that the re-routing of packages is necessary and helps to make the process run more smoothly.
"We work with UPS, and they've been very kind to offer this service to us. ... We do need this because of the large amount of packages we get [during] move-in and during September, [but] we are coming to the end of that period," Rickards said.
The trailers are scheduled to remain in place until Oct. 8.
