Goshen College’s printing and mailing office will close its doors and cease services for the Goshen College community in the coming months. This decision was announced in the Communicator on Tuesday, where it was stated, “Due to strategic priorities, we will be winding down our on campus printing and mailing services.”

Steve Wolma, the vice president for enrollment management, clarified further that mailing services will end on July 31, and printing will conclude on Aug. 28. There are currently no clear

plans as to who will take over these services, but it is likely that they will turn to “preferred external vendors who do printing and mailing services,” Wolma said.

Concerning the reason behind the elimination, Wolma reaffirmed that the decision was one “we had to make so that we could allocate resources to some of those other strategic priorities.” The only alternate priority that Wolma named was AI implementation across campus.

The decision was made about a month ago, but printing and mailing staff were not notified that their positions were eliminated until Friday, and had not been told of the prior discussions. Rick Smith, the print shop coordinator, and Bonnie Beachy, the manager of operations, both shared that the decision came as a shock to them.

Sara Method, chair of the art department, was also surprised by the announcement. “I was kind of surprised, and I did feel blindsided, because there’s a lot of stakeholders on campus that utilize printing and mailing, but no one asked us what we thought about this.”

Since they were informed so recently about the decision, Beachy is still processing the news and what it will mean for her. “Being a single mom is stressful — I’m trying not to think about that right now, but I know some organizations don’t give you that much time, they only give you two weeks.”

Smith echoed a similar sentiment: “I turn 64 in June and it would have been nice to have been working until I was 65 and maybe retire. Now I’ll need to supplement that until then.” However, despite the challenging times, he is trying his best to not become overwhelmed. “I’m just relying on my faith to get me through and not panic — just putting it in God’s hands,” Smith said.

Both Beachy and Smith expressed their concerns for students now that the service will be less available, highlighting in particular the student workers that they just hired, who will soon be out of a job. Beyond that, they are very concerned about

the accessibility of new services off campus to students that don’t have access to transportation.

This concern is held by Method as well. “A lot of our students don’t have transportation to go somewhere and pick up a proof and check it and have it sent back again. They don’t have access to go get the things they need from there, they can’t just walk across campus like they can now.”

Beyond that, she worries about what this will mean for costs. The Staples website lists one 12×18 poster as costing $12.99. A poster of the same size at Printing and Mailing currently costs around $0.29. This means a single poster could be about 45 times more expensive.

For the art department, this loss will be keenly felt, from printing photo prints to graphic design templates, senior show projects to gallery exhibit resources, and even art club posters. For Method, not only are the logistics a concern, but the human cost feels high as well.

“Rick is such an expert in what he does … he’s always like, ‘Oh, let me fix that right away,’” said Method of Smith’s flexibility and generosity.

Smith reflected on leaving soon, and said, “It’s been a pleasure serving the college, and we’ve made really close friends … it’s gonna be emotional for me.”

“Yeah, it’ll just be hard to go,” Beachy said.

A petition was started Wednesday evening by the Peace and Justice Collective to save printing and mailing, which received 22 signatures in a few hours. More information about the petition is available @gc_pjc on Instagram.

With reporting by Mackenzie Miller