GOOD TO KNOW: Finding misplaced items, and the lost and found desk, requires campuswide search
Joy Pavelski
Issue date: 2/28/08 Section: News
Lost and found on the Hillsdale College campus would be more aptly named hide and go seek. You are most likely to find anything you have lost in one of two places: where you lost it, and where anyone has turned it in. Yes. That means you may have to search the entire campus.
The public folder entitled "Lost and Found" lists items lost by students - most frequently keys and cell phones - and found by building secretaries. Carolyn Milligan, aide to the dean of men, said a student turned in a Jewish prayer shawl last year. No one claimed it. It went to the Women's Commissioner's sale last fall with all the other items left uncollected for a year.
In short: finding a lost item requires hiking boots, a cell phone and speed.
"Things you couldn't print we find in hotel rooms," said Janell Trott of Dow Center guest services.
Lost and found shelves reside in Lane and Kendall halls, the campus security office, the dean's offices, The Mossey Library, and at the Dow Leadership Center front desk. Your best plan of action, then, is walking and talking.
First, revisit where you think you have lost your item. Look around, retrace your steps. Hillsdale students rarely take or move items that do not belong to them, so your best bet is where you left it.
Next, go to the secretary in the building nearest your item's disappearance. If she does not have it, leave her a note with your name, cell number and a description of the item, and ask her to keep the note for a week. Secretaries are uniformly magnanimous about this sort of request. If you have lost something in the Knorr or Grewcock student centers, visit the secretary in the security office, Charlene White.
After this, get out your phone. Call the campus switchboard at 517-437-7431 and ask to be connected, in turn, to the other places people usually submit lost items, as listed above. Ask at each location about your lost item.
Last, post in the public folders an impassioned plea for your forlorn item. Include a description.
You may never find what you have lost, but you have a good chance at recovery.
Proof? The author lost her keys last winter through a hole in her pocket, and after an hour of searching dark snow with a friend and a flashlight, went through the steps above without finding them. She phoned home for replacement car keys (and made three copies), and may or may not have climbed home through her own dorm window several times when returning after the front door locked at midnight. She finally paid the fine for new dorm keys.
Two weeks after graduation, her house mom e-mailed: campus security had discovered her keys on the lawn. They were slightly dirty, but the button lock to her car still worked - and works today.
Hillsdale College Collegian 2008
The public folder entitled "Lost and Found" lists items lost by students - most frequently keys and cell phones - and found by building secretaries. Carolyn Milligan, aide to the dean of men, said a student turned in a Jewish prayer shawl last year. No one claimed it. It went to the Women's Commissioner's sale last fall with all the other items left uncollected for a year.
In short: finding a lost item requires hiking boots, a cell phone and speed.
"Things you couldn't print we find in hotel rooms," said Janell Trott of Dow Center guest services.
Lost and found shelves reside in Lane and Kendall halls, the campus security office, the dean's offices, The Mossey Library, and at the Dow Leadership Center front desk. Your best plan of action, then, is walking and talking.
First, revisit where you think you have lost your item. Look around, retrace your steps. Hillsdale students rarely take or move items that do not belong to them, so your best bet is where you left it.
Next, go to the secretary in the building nearest your item's disappearance. If she does not have it, leave her a note with your name, cell number and a description of the item, and ask her to keep the note for a week. Secretaries are uniformly magnanimous about this sort of request. If you have lost something in the Knorr or Grewcock student centers, visit the secretary in the security office, Charlene White.
After this, get out your phone. Call the campus switchboard at 517-437-7431 and ask to be connected, in turn, to the other places people usually submit lost items, as listed above. Ask at each location about your lost item.
Last, post in the public folders an impassioned plea for your forlorn item. Include a description.
You may never find what you have lost, but you have a good chance at recovery.
Proof? The author lost her keys last winter through a hole in her pocket, and after an hour of searching dark snow with a friend and a flashlight, went through the steps above without finding them. She phoned home for replacement car keys (and made three copies), and may or may not have climbed home through her own dorm window several times when returning after the front door locked at midnight. She finally paid the fine for new dorm keys.
Two weeks after graduation, her house mom e-mailed: campus security had discovered her keys on the lawn. They were slightly dirty, but the button lock to her car still worked - and works today.
Hillsdale College Collegian 2008
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