The availability of parking spaces and the recent increase in parking ticket penalties on campus are topics of heavy discussion within our Bucknell community.

The recent installation of the 5 ticket towing penalty has the intent of strongly emphasizing how crucial it is for both students and staff to following parking rules because parking in an undesignated spot will skew the allocation of spots for staff, students, and specific service vehicles.

However, when the clock flashes 8:28 A.M. and you have an 8:30 A.M. research meeting, yet there isn’t one vacant student spot, one must make a choice: be late to an important meeting or risk getting a ticket. And sometimes, the latter ends up being the
choice.

On November 3rd, I received a $25.00 ticket for parking my car in a staff spot. As I was about to pay the ticket in Mart’s Hall, it struck me: what constitutes staff.

If we review the technical definition in the Dictionary via Google, staff is defined as all the people employed by a particular organization. Given the fact that I am on payroll at Bucknell University for research assistance in the Anthropology department, wouldn’t that technically classify me as being employed by the school, hence a staff member?

Such conundrum led me to question why staff spaces aren’t extended to student workers, and how allowing student workers to utilize staff parking would be a plausible and feasible benefit for not only being a student at Bucknell, but by simultaneously working a job to serve the university.

By my general observations, there tends to be a higher frequency of vacant spots in staff lots, hence indicating that there are extra spots to extend to student workers.

If Bucknell were to allocate staff spots for students who work on campus, I think a valid next step is reserving spots for student athletes and other student activity members due to time demands making it stressful for involved students to find parking while also attempting to be on time for specific obligations.

Students and staff are not two separate entities. Many students fulfill staff roles and deserve to be granted staff parking privileges for their contribution to our university.