By Gabriel Brison-Trezise
In order to make space for the new Health and Counseling Center, the College plans to move its print shop and mail center from the current Business Services building, located behind the Post Office on Scott Lane, to Farr Halls basement. Manager of Business Services Fred Linger said he expects the move to take place over spring break, and the College will tear down the old building shortly thereafter.
At present, the Business Services building houses the print shop, mail center and Lingers office, but the move will scatter them across different locations.
The print shop will move to the south side of Farrs basement, most recently the site of a hair salon. The mail center will also be located in Farr, on the right-hand side of what is now a laundry room. There are currently 32 washers and dryers in the Farr laundromat. Half of them will be moved to the Mayer Art Center, providing students living in the North Campus Apartments a more convenient location in which to do laundry.
In talking to the company that services [the washers and dryers], they were able to look at the data and agree that we could remove some of those, Linger said. He added that he believed his office would be moved back to Eaton Center, where it was before it moved to the Business Services building in 2008.
Unfortunately we cant put all [the business services] in one location, and thats going to be a bit of a detriment to how they function, Linger said. Although the print shop and mail center will both occupy parts of Farr, no internal access will exist between the two; people will have to exit the building and reenter through a different door to get from one to the other.
Kenyons student-run radio station, WKCO, uses part of Farrs basement but will not lose any space as a result of the move.
Chief Business Officer Mark Kohlman placed the cost of modifying Farr to accommodate the printing and mail operations at approximately $36,000. These funds will come from money the College previously budgeted for renovation projects such as this one, he said.
The new Health and Counseling Center, which Linger said the College hopes to complete by the fall of 2014 will replace the soon-to-be-demolished Business Services building. The new building will be twice as large and configured for easier access than the current North Acland Street location is.
The print shop produces brochures, reports, mass mailings and other publications for various Kenyon offices and departments. According to Linger, the College Relations Center, the Office of Admissions and the Kenyon Review are the print shops biggest patrons. Linger is hopeful that the new location will boost the print shops visibility. Maybe [the new spot will] raise the profile of the copy center a little bit. Theres really a lot they can do to help students with some of their projects, he said.
At the moment, a lone College employee delivers all business-related U.S. mail to College offices and departments, delivers intra-campus mail and applies postage to, or meters, all outgoing business mail; the mail center is his hub. Linger said the College will be buying a new mail-metering machine for the Farr mail center. Its time to update that and bring it on par with some of the regulations, some of the technologies, Linger said.
Oftentimes students dont discover [the print shop] until senior year, when they need to put together a thesis or something of the sort, Linger said.
Maintenance will work with an outside contractor to renovate Farr in advance of the move. They will re-work some wiring and lighting, especially in what will be the mail center, and erect a wall between the remainder of the laundromat and the new mail center.
With the shop more centrally located and in a newly renovated space, perhaps more students will make use of the shop that Linger considers Kenyons own Kinkos.
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