When thinking about an editorial to write — what brings up common struggles on-campus — day student parking is the first thing that comes to mind. For instance, the walk up from the Alfond in the winter is a struggle that all students can relate to and there are many other problems. 

Day students travel upwards of 30 minutes daily to get to school, and the walk up from the Alfond can add up to 10 minutes to that travel. This proves an issue because the school recently changed its policy for tardiness and absences. Now, if a student is 1 minute late they are tardy, and at 15 minutes late, they are absent regardless of whether they show up and why they were late. This makes it much harder for day students to attend class on time. As a day student, I already have to wake up at 6:30 to make it to school on time. So, if I wake up late, which for me is almost two hours before school starts, I would be marked absent. This policy could encourage some students to just not show up to class because why would you show up to class if you get the same punishment to just not go? By skipping that class when I’m running 15 minutes late, I get more sleep and time to finish assignments — as opposed to waking up and rushing to get to class, where I would still get that same absence and punishment.

It also is hard to rush to class when the walkways by the Alfond in the mornings are more ice than cement. After it snows, the Alfond is the last place that is shoveled, so in the morning we practically have to go through banks of snow just to get to class. Of course, we all appreciate the work of our maintenance team to get our walkways clear, but they often have to focus on the pathways by the class buildings and not the Alfond, which is not usually clear until the school day is over. Overall, the walkways are unsafe, and it is not worth putting students at risk of getting hurt just to get to class. 

Now, some may say the cold walks from the Alfond have made me bitter, but I find it inconvenient that we park at the furthest spot from all our classes. This frustration is furthered when I see all the faculty parking lots that are all within a 3-minute walk to their classes. This feels unfair as most of the faculty already either live on campus or live within 15 minutes of campus. It is also unfair considering that if these teachers are late, to the same class they just parked outside of, they need not worry about getting tardy’s or absences no matter the excuse, while day students still have to worry about being one-minute late. 

It is interesting to me that the faculty do not park at the Alfond with the day students. Is it because they do not want to walk in the cold to their classroom? Me, neither. Is it because they live far away from campus? Me, too. For all the reasons faculty get to park closer to their classrooms, day students should have those same rights to park closer as well.

There are not that many day-student drivers, so I think it would be very possible to assign parking spots in the various lots around campus. There can still be senior parking privieges at the post office, but maybe the other day students would park by or behind the Commons and maybe some in the lot right beside Dunn. It would also greatly help if day students didn’t have to worry about getting tardies or absences without getting the chance to explain, rushing up those icy paths and risking injuries to ensure it doesn’t happen. I’m sure other day students could give more reasons why parking is currently a problem and would love to help improve it for themselves and later students.