Dear Editor,
When I returned to school from Spring Break, I had a quintessential Ball State University experience -- a run-in with the improbably named Parking "Services."
As tends to be the case when students return from a vacation, the metered parking spaces were all filled with the minivans of parents helping students move back into the dorms. Idling cars and motorcycles took up what apparently unregulated space was available on the sidewalks and service-vehicle driveways.
Consequently, I parked in a sparsely filled lot in the vicinity of my building -- a lot in which I, despite my $40 per annum parking fee, am not allowed to park. I will not exhaust the topic here, but suffice to say, the administration of certain student services is not something this university does well.
Upon my return to the lot, I was not at all surprised that after at most ten minutes of pressing my luck, a university agent had ticketed my automobile. Earlier, I'd seen a Parking Services employee prowling the parking lot looking for some hapless motorist who'd strayed into his jurisdiction. He found me.
I cannot begrudge employee #PE1209 for his exercise of power; I was in error and this employee was only doing a job, however irrelevant or detrimental to student welfare this job may be.
I do question Ball State University, however, for sponsoring an organization which imposes stiff (the operative word here) fines upon students while providing, as widespread outcry would suggest, inconsistent lot enforcement and inadequate service.
Rather than encouraging Parking Services to amend its ways and perhaps seek a more civil sum when ticketing drivers, BSU has consistently allowed this rogue organization to terrorize students and faculty alike.
I urge similarly peeved students to do as I plan to do, and exercise their power of choice by taking their education dollars elsewhere.
Daniel R. Shockley
freshman
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