Undergraduate Assembly looks to provide engineers with lockers

Engineers may soon have less weight to carry on their shoulders.

The Undergraduate Assembly is working on a program to introduce lockers for Engineering students. If the School of Engineering and Applied Science approves the UA’s initiative this semester, the UA will begin plans to place lockers in the basement of the Towne Building, located on 33rd and Walnut streets.

UA Engineering Representative Lindsay Tsai, an Engineering sophomore, pioneered the project. She conducted a survey among Engineering undergraduates in September to gauge support for the idea. Around 275 of the 350 students who responded to the survey expressed support. Tsai said the response was “overwhelming.”

Since the survey, Tsai has been in correspondence with Pat Pancoast, manager of Engineering Operational Services. Tsai hopes to meet with Engineering Dean Eduardo Glandt within the next month to receive approval for the project.

“Right now, we’re still very much in the planning stages,” Tsai said, adding the initiative will rely on receiving a go-ahead from the Engineering administration.

Engineering students face difficulty transporting books and design projects to the Engineering Quad said UA Housing, Sustainability and Facilities Committee Director Sam Bieler, who is a College senior. The Engineering Quad consists of four buildings located near 33rd and Walnut streets.

Having lockers in Towne would be “an effective way for Engineering students to handle a lot of the gear they have,” he said. Bieler has been working on the project alongside Tsai.

Tsai and Bieler have come up with two possible locker systems. The lockers may either run on a free, first-come, first-serve basis or on a rental system. The rental system would “pretty much pay for itself,” Bieler said, although only a limited number of students would have locker access.

According to a report authored by Tsai, Pancoast has estimated the Towne basement can hold 200 to 300 lockers at a minimum cost of $22,000 The lockers may be designed in steel or wood.

Presently, lockers are mainly available for graduate students, including those at the Graduate School of Education, the Law School and the Perelman School of Medicine. The Wharton School rents lockers to both undergraduate and graduate students.

Engineering sophomore Rebecca Wentzel is “pro-locker all the way,” she wrote in an email.

“The Engineering Quad is already as far away as possible from the rest of life, so by the time we engineers get there, the thought of going back to the high rises or off-campus housing to get a book or do homework is tiring,” she added.

Wentzel wrote that she would prefer free lockers, but that renting one “would be more convenient than no locker at all.”

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