Graduate students aren't alone in lamenting parking shortages. Many staff members also deal with campus parking shortages. With the opening of Rubenstein Hall, many employees within the Sanford Institute moved onto campus from off-campus offices. This increase in staff and faculty resulted in limited parking within the PubPol parking and surrounding proximate lots. Many individuals were forced to take Green Zone parking. Oftentimes, if I didn't arrive to work by 8:15am, I wouldn't be able to find a parking spot except in the gravel lots, a 10- to 15-minute walk.
Parking suddenly became an impediment to get to my job. Some of my coworkers work both in the office and community, and travel to and from the office multiple times a day, spending up to 6 hours a week walking from the car to the office, as one coworker timed.
A recent article discussed carpooling, a wonderful idea. However, there are rules regulating that, one of which is that the carpooling individuals cannot live at the same address. Therefore, my husband and I, who both work at Duke, carpool, but are unable to benefit from the permit parking discount nor convenient parking for him. The days I don't go to work, he has to walk 30 minutes to his office from our lot.
I understand that there are limited options for parking, but as the university grows, new buildings are taking the place of parking lots. New lots need to be built to compensate for the loss, ideally planned out prior to the building of new buildings. Duke is going to continue growing in faculty, students and staff. Parking is going to continue to be a necessity. Parking is already selling more permits than the number of spots, resulting in unhappy individuals. "A happy worker is a productive worker," but beginning your day frustrated trying to find parking creates poor working environments.
If Duke wants to help its staff and maintain a positive employee relationship, it should invest in its parking. A policy shift should occur allowing parking to increase its budget through other University money to create additional parking lots.
Laura Sample
Senior Data Technician
Center for Health Policy
Students act too entitled
Am I the only one around here who thinks it's ridiculous that nearly 75 students cited for underage alcohol possession are having their cases dismissed, all because of a frivolous technicality? While I'm sure I will offend and outrage all the privileged darlings whose parents bought them out of this one, I can't help but be disgusted. Whatever happened to right and wrong? Were you drinking underage? This is a yes or no question-no buts allowed. Oh right, I forgot, the rules are for everyone else, or at least everyone else who can't afford to exploit the law for their own selfish purposes. Don't bother writing a refutation regarding the vernacular of the law; you miss my point entirely.
It is situations like this that 1) completely validate all the Duke "stereotypes" 2) make me embarrassed to be a Duke student. Shame on the Duke parents who footed the bill to dismiss their children's wrongdoings. Be assured, you are not only teaching your children that Alcohol Law Enforcement officers must obtain a search warrant to enter a suspicious home (in which there are 87 underage drinkers!), but that they are above the law; you are denying the existence of right and wrong.
And we wonder why many students lack an awareness of the ethical obligation to respect their neighbors off East Campus, or clean up after themselves-this is why.
Rest assured that I am not conservative in my worldview, but I cannot deny the value in discipline and taking responsibility for one's actions. That's how it works: you make a mistake, you fix it-whether that means taking responsibility and paying the consequence. Where along the way did we lose this important insight?
As a fellow Duke student, one that lives off-East campus and may have even done my share of under-age drinking, I don't ask (as I would like) that you all discover your social consciousness but simply that you take responsibility for your actions. Your privileged position at this elite university does not put you above the law-or as we saw this week, maybe it does? I'm moving to Europe.
Angela Jarman
Trinity '06
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.