The cabinet of Westminster College’s campus concierge desk holds lost and found items from around the school. According to Jocee Doramus, coordinator of Westminster College’s campus concierge desk, water bottles are some of the most commonly kept items, and the desk has collected over 50 water bottles so far this year. Photo by Rachel Terran.
Westminster College’s campus concierge desk tracks snowfall, discounts and campus-wide lost and found items. On a typical day, five to 10 lost and found items are brought to the desk—meaning at least 30 items a week and well over 1,000 items each year, according to Emily Budd, a junior nursing major and campus concierge associate.
Despite the quantity of items brought to the concierge desk in the Shaw Student Center, some Westminster students said they have been unable to track down their lost items.
“Every time I am missing something, I go to the concierge desk,” said Sarah Abbott, a junior nursing major. “Once I lost my purse and found it there, but other times I have not found my stuff there.”
Most of the items brought to the concierge desk are student IDs and water bottles, Budd said.
“It can take some time for lost and found items from other places on campus to get here, but this is where [they are] supposed to come,” Budd said.
Jocee Doramus, a senior public health major and campus concierge coordinator, manages the student workers at the desk. Doramus deals with lost items every day and said an important aspect of her job is keeping the items safe.
“We always have people describe their item really well if it is valuable to them, and then we will go look for them,” Doramus said. “We usually don’t let people look in the drawer, and we always make sure everything is locked in the cabinets at all times.”
Because so many lost items go unclaimed, the concierge desk has item-specific procedures in place to get rid of items that haven’t been retrieved in months or years, Doramus said.
“Eventually we have giveaways at the end of the semester or end of the full year,” she said. “Random clothes and water bottles—we probably have 50 water bottles from this semester already— will usually be given away at the end of a semester or year. Electronics are donated after two years and credit cards are shredded after a year.”
Westminster students, faculty and staff have access to the campus concierge services. People who are not regularly on campus but who attended an event on campus can also look for their missing items at the concierge desk, Budd said.
“If the missing thing is not here, we will take down the person’s information and what they lost and contact them if it turns up,” Budd said.
Aside from the lost and found, the campus concierge desk also provides information about student activities, volunteer opportunities, recreational information and student services and can also help students, faculty and staff navigate Utah’s bus and train systems.
However, the main goal of the campus concierge desk is to get students out into the community on a college student’s budget, Doramus said.
“For Jazz and Bees tickets, we have a partnership set up,” Doramus said. “For other discounts—like restaurants— we call local places and see what they are doing as far as student discounts, and usually the businesses are reaching out to us because they want to offer a Westminster discount.”
