#i2amru (I, Too, Am Reinhardt) Volume 1 Number 1 | Page 66

Commuters of RU
by Teddy Casimir

of the biggest problems in trying
to fix any issues related to commuter parking: often, commuters
do not exercise their voices and
thus do not provide Public Safety
with any input when the department drafts its parking policies.
Captain Richard Ford, Assistant
Director of Public Safety, recently
spoke at length about the communication process involved in
making policy decisions regarding
student parking:

Above: New Reinhardt President Kina Mallard and graduating
senior Nathan Stamper, who has been a concerned commuter.
Right: Rising senior Lucas Krull is one of many commuters who
wish for a change in parking policies.

Reinhardt University has long
had a reputation as a ”commuter
campus,” which implies that most
of the student population migrates
back to their homes at nights
and on weekends. In actuality,
however, although the number of
commuter students continues to
rise every year, most of Reinhardt’s
students are on-campus residents,
with non-resident commuters
making up only 33 percent of the
student population in 2014.
As the University has increasingly
becoming more oriented to being
a residential campus, the administration has also tried to cater to
the needs of commuters students
through its infrastructure, lest they
be forgotten.

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The campus currently boasts a
commuter lounge where commuter
students are able to relax in between classes, and the university
recently held a breakfast to show
appreciation toward commuter
students.
Despite these perks, however,
commuter students still largely feel
that they are outsiders and that they
often fail to be recognized as equal
Reinhardt students. A main area
of criticism has revolved around
the amount of parking space given
to commuters. Parking regulation
at Reinhardt has often faced a fair
amount of discontent from the
student body at large, but commuters have been the most critical of
changes or implementations in said
regulations, since they are affected
on a daily basis.

In September of 2014, major
controversy ensued at Reinhardt
University when the university’s
Public Safety Department placed
into effect a new policy that
banned commuter students from
the parking lot situated behind
the Gordy Dining Facility, one
of the lots formerly allotted to
commuters.
Outcries from commuters led to
Public Safety, in association with
the Student Government Association, deciding to hold a town
hall meeting so that the student
body could voice its views on
the parking mandate. However,
fewer than a dozen commuter
students showed up for the town
hall meeting, highlighting one

“[Public Safety Director] Chief
Sherry Cornett and I get together
to come up with the parking policies. Dr. Roger Lee [Vice President
for Student Affairs and Dean of
Students] is also notified. We also
go to SGA and get their input. In
making those decisions, the Chief
and I have to look at the numbers
of residents and commuters. We
find that number through the
Registrar’s Office. After we receive
all of the inputs and data, we then
make the final decisions about
where the [parking] locations will
be.”
Nonetheless, Public Safety took
the words of the few students who
came to the town hall meeting
into consideration, happy to see
that there are still some within the
student body who wish to, and do,
exercise their voices as student-citizens. Currently, the commuter
parking lot behind the Gordy
Dining Facility has been reopened
to commuters, though a final
decision has not yet been made
about whether such a change will
be permanent.

This will ultimately be the decision
of the incoming President of Reinhardt, Dr. Kina Mallard, who takes
office in mid-May of this year. As
Ford notes:
“As soon as the new President
comes, we will find out if commuter parking is going to stay behind
the dining facility. There ar e two
problems with that right now, one
being that people who come eat at
the Gordy end up parking in fire
lanes when space runs out, and we
do have to fine them for that.

“Often,
commuters do not
exercise their
voices as
student-citizens.”
The second problem might arise
if Sodexo gets the new contract to
stay on here; they are wanting to
build a new facility. That’s going to
take that parking lot away, because
they’re going to extend out onto it.”
Many different administrative
factors must be considered before
parking decisions can be made or
even improved. However, the student body seems to be in complete
disaccord as to how to achieve that.
Graduating senior Vanessa Irie,
herself a commuter, was not positive about her perception of the
parking spaces accorded to commuters. “Commuter parking makes
it seem as if Reinhardt’s commuters
are not as important as residents.”

When questioned further about
what changes would be most beneficial to commuters, she found it
hard to come up with a clear and
concise plan.“Some classes are in
Gordy, for instance. Allow closer
parking to class buildings… But
this, again, is weak, because residents do also need parking spots.”
Irie goes on to acknowledge that
she has observed improvements in
commuter parking, and that, on
the perceived lack of much parking spaces allotted to commuters,
“it is understandable all the same
because there is limited space, so
I know the officers are doing their
best.”
Lucas Krull, a junior footballer
and commuter, was less positive in
his statements about the school’s
Public Safety Department and the
issue of commuter parking. His
statements seem to reflect Irie’s
opinion that commuters are often
overlooked and not given the
preferential treatment shown to
residents.
“Think about it,” Krull notes.“If
residents who are only supposed
to park in their dorm areas cannot park anywhere else during
the week, then their cars should
be where they are supposed to be.
But if you drive around, you’ll see
that the resident parking spots are
oftentimes empty. So, if there are a
bunch of open spaces, then there
obviously isn’t a shortage of parking spots. Commuters are visitors;
as long as we do not park in faculty spots, we should be allowed to
park anywhere.”

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