On April 10, I was responsible for writing and printing an article of student opinions on the parking situation at Longwood. After speaking with several people, including the Parking Services Manager Laura Rice and the Associate Dean of Wellness/Director of Campus Recreation Matthew McGregor, I decided a follow-up article was of utmost importance.
The original article mentioned several complaints that students, residential and commuter, and visitor parkers had with parking at Longwood. Some of the complaints were already known within Parking Services, but some of them did not have solid evidence for even being complaints. Dealing with commuter lots: The lot on Beech Street is leased by Parking Services; therefore, parking has no control over it. If there is a problem with the parking lot, please contact Rice because without her knowledge, she has no way of knowing if there is a problem with this lot. There seems to be plenty of commuter lots for students to park in because there are constantly students coming and going throughout the day. Rice speaks to this issue perfectly: “Convenience is not always manageable. A commuter may have to park far from his or her academic building, but this is the reason for time management.” I have to agree with her. There is no reason a person cannot leave for his or her destination 10 minutes earlier and walk across campus. It takes 10 minutes tops to walk from the one side of campus to the other. Parking is not the issue in this instance, walking is.
There are many reasons that residential parking is on the outskirts of campus. The biggest is because residents are just that. They don’t need their cars on a daily basis and probably shouldn’t be using them on a daily basis, either. There is no need for a resident to be in constant contact with his or her car because there just isn’t a need for it. Campus offers a lot of amenities for residential students, plus there’s the FAB for a quick Walmart trip. As for freshmen, there are currently 70 spaces reserved for these students. Go to Parking Services and Rice will tell you exactly where you can park. There are exemptions to freshmen not allowed to have cars: medical reasons, a job helping pay for school, students in the military, out-of-state students and many temporary exemptions. If you need your car for a week or so, go talk to Parking Services. They work with students. They want to meet you and meet with you to discuss why you need a car.
If you are hurt and on crutches or otherwise temporarily impaired and need to park closer to campus, Parking Services works closely with Disability Services to work with these students and will often give a seven day pass for medical parking. This is but one way parking works with students. There is not liberal parking at Longwood for the simple reason that this is not possible. With the addition of Conferences and Scheduling, there are internal and external events all over campus, seven days a week. Parking Services and Conferences and Scheduling work together to make it possible for these groups to rent out parking lots (at $2 a space for external organizations) so that their people can all park in the same space.
We can all agree that parking late at night and walking back alone is fearful. That’s why Campus police created the Student Safety Organization also known as Night Walkers. These students have extensive background checks and are a great thing to utilize if you are afraid at night. Also, the police will come pick you up from your car in the parking lot if you are afraid to walk. No questions. The cars hit by baseballs are a separate problem. “These cars were all parked illegally and not where freshmen are supposed to park. If Club Baseball happens to hit a car, they tell me first,” stated McGregor. Just because your car is hit by something doesn’t mean that Club Baseball hit them. I mistakenly assumed that only Club Baseball or Softball used the field at Lancer Park, but anyone can use the field to throw around a ball. It’s not always a club sport that damages things.
Parking Services is very willing to work with students throughout the year. Talking to other students about the parking rules isn’t helping anyone because students don’t know everything and not talking to the people who oversee parking will not give you the answers necessary because nobody knows the rules quite like the people who make them. Rice will speak with each student if he or she carves out time to go speak with her one-onone. Shoot her an email or call her on the phone if you don’t have time to go to her office. Either way, talk to her.
Parking tickets are given out as a learning tool. If you receive a ticket, chances are that you won’t park in the wrong spot again. Be responsible. Go talk to Parking Services or read the parking rule manual that is given to you when you get a decal before you get a ticket. Don’t complain after or use the excuse that “nobody told me I couldn’t park here” when the manual spells out the rules of parking.
At the beginning of each semester, get your parking decal promptly and put it on your car. Don’t wait until the last minute because that’s when computers crash or the world implodes. All-in-all, you have to ask for help to receive it. Rice cannot read your mind if you need help or have a complaint. Student input is necessary for anything to become better. Stop complaining to other students and start voicing concerns with the people who can do something about them. If you have a problem or need help, talk to Parking Services because without them, nothing will be better and you’ll always have a problem.
