On Tuesday, all Dartmouth students received a notice in their Hinman Boxes that announced the Hinman Post Office will no longer accept any deliveries by Federal Express, effective Feb. 1.
In the mailing, the post office stated that it would not accept FedEx packages because the company "is unwilling to meet the College terms required for the Hinman in order to insure the most economical and efficient delivery of packages."
The notice stated that all packages received at the Hinman Post Office from FedEx would be returned to sender.
According to Assistant Director of Facilities, Operations and Management Bill Hochstin, the post office's problems with Federal Express began in 1994 when Facilities, Operations, and Management instituted a handling fee for all packages delivered to Hinman boxes.
"About one-and-a-half years ago, United Postal Service proposed that they would pay 36 cents per package we handle for them," Hochstin said.
"When a package comes, the Hinman office signs for them, notifies the student, and stores the box," he said. "When we sign for the package, we guarantee its delivery. Most of the services will pay the service charge."
The fee is not a revenue source, Hochstin said. "It's a way to control the number of vendors and our relationship with the vendor," he said.
Hochstin said Federal Express could not pay the fee because of a national policy.
"FedEx flatly refused to pay the service fee," Hochstin said.
"We decided we would no longer handle and guarantee their packages," he said.
Hochstin said it took the post office some time to finalize the issue with Federal Express because of the organizational structure of the company. While the local branch was willing to pay the fee, the national headquarters, located in Memphis, Tenn., was not, Hochstin said.
Hochstin said some compromises have been suggested.
"FedEx proposed that we could continue to print notifications to be placed in student boxes. They would then have to go to a place to pick up the FedEx package," he said.
But pick-up points for the packages may be up to three miles away, he said and "FedEx also destroys or returns items if they are not picked up by a certain time."
Another idea might have been to guarantee UPS packages, but not FedEx packages, Hochstin said.
"There are lots of issues raised when we are entering relationships with vendors," he said. "There are problems with liability, security and business practice."
Hochstin said he has received some responses from students about the change.
"I've received six [BlitzMail] messages directly from students. I will be meeting Tuesday with these students and [Student] Assembly President Jim Rich," he said.
Hochstin said the post office is still trying to find a solution that is amenable to everyone.
"We're glad there's a response to the letter sent out. We want to work with the students," he said. "I think we'll come to a resolution acceptable for students."
"We need to search for options with students," he said. "It may not be necessary to guarantee all packages. Small items like tickets and letter-sized packages are fine because they don't need to store those things."
During the 1993-1994 school year, the post office handled more than 23,125 packages from UPS, FedEx, Airborne, DHL Worldwide Express and the US Mail Express. Of those packages, 17,556 were delivered by UPS. FedEx packages accounted for 3,449 of the total packages.
