Sitting at the counter of the Mac Grille on Tuesday evening, Tania Espinoza '05 retells the tale of her belongings getting lost in the shuffle of Macalester College's storage system. Espinoza emphasized that she is not mad at the College for misplacing her stored boxes, she only speculated about why she never received notification that her boxes were in danger of being marked ‘abandoned.' "They probably tried to contact me but I never got the letter," Espinoza said.

Espinoza, a sophomore from Argentina, spent the summer of 2001 working at Macalester; by the end of the summer she had decided to take a leave of absence from the college for the fall semester. Instead of returning to Macalester for the spring semester, Espinoza decided to take the full year off. When she returned home Espinoza left many of her belongings at Macalester. Upon her return, Espinoza found that all of her belongings, which she had assumed were still in the Wallace Attic for the past year, were gone. Her clothes, photos, books and personal mementos had all vanished.

Fortunately, Espinoza's story of woe is the wildly uncommon exception to the otherwise reliable process of storage at Macalester College. Espinoza had the misfortune of taking a year-long leave during the same time period that the contents of the Wallace Attic were purged to allow dorm renovations to begin. When boxes were moved from Wallace to other storage areas, residential staff attempted to identify and contact the owners of any items that were not clearly marked. With the exception of Espinoza and one other student who lost one box, the staff was successful in moving the boxes out of Wallace.

The situation that occurred this past summer wasunique due to Wallace's storage area being completely emptied. The situation of identifying the owners of abandoned items left in storage is not a unique one. Last spring it became clear that as storage facilities —already in short supply—continued to shrink, the storage policy needed more clarification.

A revision to the storage policy that is currently underway in Residential Life seeks to clarify the current rules for students. Sarah Griesse, Director of Residential Life, explains "We want to manage storage better for students and we want students to understand the finite nature of storage." She cites an example of recent problems with the storage system; one student left thirty boxes in storage, other students allow their off-campus friends to store their belongings in the college's storage space. Greisse made it clear that Macalester is outgrowing its limited amount of storage space and that "some students have higher needs than others."

Ironically, Residential Life was unaware that Macalester College Student Government (MCSG) was also working on the same issue. MCSG President Harris Aqeel was approached by Espinoza and informed of her unfortunate situation. MCSG looked into the existing storage policy and felt that the policy was not suitable due to its lack of specificity. A resolution created in hopes of improving the policy was drafted and subsequently passed.

The resolution urges Residential Life to have a clearly defined policy that is published in the handbook, and, furthermore is provided to all students who utilize the storage facilities. In an e-mail, MCSG President Harris Aqeel wrote "MCSG feels students should know exactly what they are getting into when they store their luggage at Macalester."

Both sides have been working together to make sure the policy was suitable for both students and Residential Life. Sarah Griesse expressed appreciation that MCSG has been helpful in the process and, in his e-mail, Aqeel wrote that "Residential Life was very receptive to our resolution. They implemented all our suggestions and were very cooperative."

And while these new policies will not immediately help Espinoza, she was heartened by the College's attempt to assist her in replacing the items that were lost. The Office of the Dean of Students cut her a check to help cover expenses, for which she was grateful. "The only thing they could do is reimburse me, and they did," she says, though "they couldn't replace the things that I had." Both Residential Life and MCSG hope that the new policy will prevent other students from being in the position that Espinoza faced.