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Fraternities Protest Postal Service's Forwarding Policy

Posted on: Monday, 10 October 2005, 18:00 CDT

By Adam Smeltz, The Centre Daily Times, State College, Pa.

Oct. 9--STATE COLLEGE -- A post office custom that denies mail-forwarding service to Penn State fraternity brothers is stirring claims of second-class treatment from the Interfraternity Council.

The U.S. Postal Service normally offers the forwarding service to any resident for as long as 12 months after his address changes. But the post office in State College classifies fraternities as businesses, not as residences, a local postal official said Friday.

Postal rules prohibit the forwarding of mail from a business to individuals.

And so, when fraternity members formally ask the State College post office to forward mail during summer breaks or after graduation, the office cancels the requests. "They say, 'We don't forward frat mail' and things of that nature," IFC President Brian Bertges said.

He and other IFC leaders raised the issue before State College Borough Council during an informal conversation last month. Several council members and Mayor Bill Welch sounded incredulous that the post office would deny any residents the forwarding service. They advised the IFC to contact local legislators for intervention.

Bertges said Friday that mail arriving for recent alumni can put active brothers in an awkward spot. "If we throw it away, we're violating federal law," he said. "We're either forced to hold on to the mail or break the law."

Dennis Manendo, a Postal Service spokesman in Erie, said the volume of new and departing residents in a college town can put huge stress on the post office. He confirmed that fraternities here are given the business classification for mail delivery.

The local postal official, who declined to be named, said that "there aren't many places" that have the volume of residential turnover found in State College. College students' continual moves put a heavy burden on the postal system, the official said.

State College is home to more than 50 fraternity chapters.

Borough Council President Tom Daubert is a fraternity adviser who collects and forwards mail for his advisees in the summer. He called the post office's denial of forwarding "a bad practice" that goes back at least 20 years.

"In an apartment house, they certainly forward," Daubert said. Most mail to fraternity members is addressed personally to those individuals, not in a business style, he said.

"Why don't they treat these as they treat other residents who live in apartments?" Daubert said. "It's the kind of thing you'd think (the post office) could take care of. It's not costing anybody any money, really."

Bertges said the IFC has raised the issue with state Sen. Jake Corman, R-Benner Township. Corman's chief of staff, Don Houser, said Friday that the concerns were forwarded to U.S. Rep. John Peterson, R-Pleasantville.

"We're in the process right now of studying the issue more thoroughly," Peterson spokesman Chris Tucker wrote in an e-mail. "But we look forward to working with Sen. Corman and other interested parties in an effort to arrive at (a) reasonable outcome."

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Copyright (c) 2005, The Centre Daily Times, State College, Pa.

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Source: Centre Daily Times (State College, Pa.)

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