By Tina Romito
Thursday, April 21, Professor Adrian Oser arrived frantically into class at 11:25 a.m., 15 minutes after classwas scheduled to begin. The students were surprised that Oser was late and that there was no class cancellation notice on the door. Oser is never late to class. She is usually in the classroom as early as 10 minutes before class begins. But the first day the Adams parking lot was closed off was an exception.
As Oser hurried into the classroom, students stopped passing around an attendance sheet. Oser was visibly aggravated and apologized to the class for her unexpected lateness. She explained that when she could not find any parking, she told a security guard that her class was beginning in 10 minutes. But the guard seemed to show no sympathy toward her predicament nor did he seem willing to help her. As she drove away, the guard yelled after her moving car, that there was a “new” faculty lot. Once she arrived, another security guard asked her to show her I.D. despite the two faculty stickers on her car.
“That wasted precious minutes,” Oser said.
Students and faculty from the University are affected by the new parking situation. This is caused by the construction of the new academic drama and dance building located by Adams Hall. An entire faculty parking lot was closed and areas that used to be designated for students are now reserved for faculty. These new faculty lots aren’t suitable to contain all the vehicles that the previous faculty lot, which is now closed, held.
Students are inconvenienced by the construction of the new building since part of what was once their parking lot is now allocated to faculty. Students voiced their opinions and complaints about parking.
“That’s my problem everyday,” Jesse Jin, a junior who commutes to the University, said.
Prior to the construction, parking was an aggravating feat. Nicole Allen, another junior who commutes, complained that on some days she has to travel from her home in Levittown to the University to arrive an hour before her class begins. Allen does this to find a parking spot before parking lots close.
“Luckily I don’t have to park over by Breslin so I’ve avoided that mess,” Allen said.
Joseph James, a senior who commutes, believes that there is enough faculty parking for the faculty population, yet there isn’t a sufficient amount of parking for students, especially those who commute. James also said that it is already horrible for students to take the gamble of finding a spot to park behind Breslin. Parking in this lot is still an issue and the majority of students leave their cars in areas not designated for parking. Now that a part of this lot is open stricly to faculty, students are parking in areas that often aren’t legal parking spaces. James believes that the measures that security is taking are out of control.
“If they take away parking that we are already lacking,” James said. “You would think that they’d be more lenient with towing and tickets.”
Professor Sue Drucker thought that between the construction and the subtraction of an entire faculty lot, there would be huge problems.
“I was troubled that shuttles were going to run until only 6 p.m., leaving out people who have night classes,” Drucker said.
(See Parking on page B5)
Drucker was initially fearful she might have to go to park at a nearby relative’s house, yet she is surprised that the University’s administration has done a nice job with handling this situation by opening an additional faculty parking lot. When asked about who has priority over parking: the students or the faculty? Drucker seemed to be indecisive.
“You can’t have a class without a faculty member,” Drucker said. “And you can’t have a class without the class,”
An important issue that came across when interviewing students and faculty members was regarding commuter and dorming students parking on both sides of campus. Both Drucker and Oser believe that students who dorm should keep their cars on the north side of campus and either walk over the Unispan, or take the Blue Beetle or Road Runner buses to south campus.
“Their [the students who dorm] cars should have special stickers so that security can identify them,” Oser said.
Students also had feelings concerning commuter and dorming student parking. Commuter students felt that the students who dorm should keep their cars on the north side of campus so that commuter students have parking spaces.
Jessie Jin thinks the University needs to regulate where dorm students park in order to have parking spaces for commuters.
“They need to limit people who dorm from parking on this side [South side] of campus,” Jin said.
Blair Silverstein, a junior who dorms on campus, disagrees with the idea that residents should have an assigned side of campus to park.
“We pay to dorm here,” Silverstein said. “We should be able to park on either side of campus.”
The majority of parking spaces on the north side of campus remain unused. In front of the Hofstra Arena, there were empty parking spaces on last Thursday morning. In one of the vacant lots sat Joe Blaustein, a shuttle bus driver, in his shuttle bus with nothing to do. Blaustein explained how the new shuttle bus has been working. He sat in one of the parking lots in front of the arena. As people come to park he drives them to where they need to go and returns to his spot to wait for more people. Each time a person rides the shuttle bus, he/she must record their name and whether they are a faculty member or a student. Doing this will help the University decide if the shuttle bus is worth the time and effort.
Blaustein has been doing this for three weeks and as the days go by fewer people are using the shuttle.
“I’m only getting three, four, five people a day,” Blaustein said.
Some people may be walking because of the fair weather or some people may not know about the shuttle. Blaustein said that most faculty informed him that they have received an e-mail to notify them of the shuttle bus, while some students he has driven claim to have never been notified by the University.
This shuttle bus that could help ease student’s and faculty’s tension over parking is not being utilized at the moment. There are other questions when it comes to parking besides if students or faculty should have priority. All elements of the University are important so all people who work, live and attend classes on the campus are the priority.
“We have to balance everyone’s needs,” Melissa Connelly, assistant vice president for University Relations, said. “Which is not very easy.”

Congested parking lots are causing a rift between teachers and students over who has priority on south campus. (Harry Tanielyan/The Chronicle)
