UAF students opened their mailboxes last month to find a request for payment of the $45 fee for use of the post office on-campus, a new policy that went into effect this semester.

This is the first time in 20 years the campus post office has had to collect the fee itself, according to Post Office Manager John Renfro.

The decision to hand over this responsibility was made by the director of the Residence Life Department, Kevin Huddy.

"I didn't agree with [Huddy's] decision," Renfro said. "Residence Life initiated it and that's why we're collecting the post office fees. We had no choice."

Huddy said rising housing costs caused Residence Life to hand over the payment collection to the post office.

"I felt that for us to continue paying for post office boxes would make it necessary for us to raise the rates to even higher levels," Huddy said. "The post office had expectations that we would pay for all residents, even those who do not use a post office box."

Huddy said that the change in payment policy has had three major positive effects.

"It allows Residence Life to keep rates at a lower level; it places the cost of the boxes on those that actually use them instead of sharing the cost among people who do not use the boxes; and, it makes the true costs associated with the post office visible to the users instead of concealing the cost within the housing fees," he said.

The schedule for collecting the fees has changed since last semester.

The cost for a mailbox is $45 a semester, a higher rate than the $30 a semester in previous years.

The fees for this semester and next semester include the summer term, however, making the total price for the year $90 for a mailbox.

"The rent at the regular post office is quite a bit higher than what we charge here. At the regular post office, you can pay every six months or you can pay the whole thing," Renfro said. "Instead of collecting it three times, we opted to follow the collection method over at the federal post office."

Renfro said that the post office wanted to make the payment process as simple as possible for students.

"We installed a post office box outside the post office so that students could put their payment in the box," he said. "We don't want everyone out there standing in lines."

Because of lack of notice of the change in fee collection, the post office admits that there may be some flaws in the new policy.

"When Residence Life informed us, we only had a short window to come up with a way to charge the students and make things the best way for them," Renfro said. "We might have to go back next summer and rethink things to better accommodate our students."

The post office would rather have Residence Life collect the fees, but the decision was left in the hands of the housing department.

"We thought the best way was to keep the post office fee included in the dorm fees, but it wasn't an option," said Renfro. "Residence Life decided they wanted to do it differently."