The University Facilities Management department will dedicate the month of May to retrieving 85,000 academic building and office keys around campus that have been lost. These keys are the traditional brass keys and do not include the electronic key cards.

Mark J. Moscarello, glass and door and lock shop supervisor for the UFM, said the department is trying to update the key database that has been in existence since 1982.

Moscarello said the traditional brass keys are those that belong to the university that people never properly returned after they were done using them.

“There are 80,000 records of people who have keys out there,” Moscarello said. “Some who don’t even belong to the university anymore.”

The keys go to offices and classrooms only in the academic buildings.

Moscarello said the problem is that keys are being passed down from employee to employee, but the key is still under the name of the original owner.

When a student or faculty member receives a key, that person is charged for it. If it needs replaced, the key’s number is deleted from the system and the person is reissued a new key for $1.25. If they don’t return the key after use, UFM cannot do anything about it because the person has already paid for it. The returned keys will be recycled.

“We’re hoping that if we make the month of May a clean-up period and get the word out university-wide, people will return them to us,” said Susan Eikelberry, administrative assistant for UFM.

Students and faculty who have a key lying around and don’t know what it belongs to should return it to the lock shop as soon as possible.

Students and faculty can drop keys off at the UFM office to the front desk between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. UFM student staff members can also retrieve keys from campus offices if needed.

Contact Dianna Warwick at [email protected].