Somebody is going to have a long walk next year.
With the elimination of the Ocean parking lot for the construction of a new dormitory this May, the University plans to re-shuffle many on-campus parking lots. Unfortunately for graduate students, their lots are getting more shuffled than others'.
"The parking situation is less than ideal now, and it sounds like it is likely to get worse," said Megan Drinkwater, a graduate student in classical studies.
Tomalei Vess, president of the Graduate and Professional Student Council does not approve of administrators' current plans to let undergraduates have the spaces along Wannamaker Drive currently occupied by many graduate students.
"It makes no sense at all," she said, noting the hierarchy of parking chosen by many other schools. "The way most universities do it... there's faculty and administrators, then staff, then graduate and professional students, then its undergraduates."
Nonetheless, administrators say they are trying to make the best they can out of a bad situation.
Executive Vice President Tallman Trask said he understood the graduate students' plight. "I am aware of the graduate student issues and intend to deal with them...," he said.
Scott Keane, GPSC representative to the University's Committee on Facilities and Environment, said that he thought parking consultant Barbara Chance and other administrators were interested in graduate parking needs.
"I think she was certainly very receptive to our input," he said.
Keane added that the idea of off-campus parking and a shuttle service for undergraduates had been discussed in a recent CFE meeting. However, the idea had been dismissed, partly due to the results of other universities' experiments. "Students ended up parking illegally on campus, close to their dorms," said Keane. "So it was really looked at as not a viable alternative."
As long as undergraduates remain on campus, however, graduate students will likely be relegated to distant lots. But administrators cannot make them happy about it.
"The plan seems suboptimal to me," said Ari Kohen, a graduate student in political science. "I understand that parking spaces are tight-they are on every college campus. I can only hope that something more reasonable will be proposed, though, because the idea of leaving my house an hour early to get to class... is indeed upsetting."
The relocation compounds a problem that has consistently upset graduate and professional students. Many University postgraduates are surprised when they come to Duke and realize that undergraduates, who rarely commute to and from the school on a daily basis, receive priority.
"A car is a luxury for an undergraduate's life, not a necessity," said Samuel Findley, a graduate student in classical studies temporarily studying in France. "To destroy our parking lot... in favor of yet one more place for [undergraduates] to park just doesn't make sense." Findley will return to campus next fall.
"Why on earth are freshmen allowed cars anyway?" Catherine Young, a graduate student in political science, asked in an e-mail. "I've heard constant complaints from undergrads about how 'lame' Durham is, so why do they want to get off-campus into Durham anyway?"
The parking plan has not been finalized, but developments will be occurring rapidly as construction on the Ocean approaches; Trask will meet with GPSC April 18 to discuss graduate student concerns.
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