Parking pass requirements create questions

For as long as students can remember, free parking has been a given on campus. But this year, students have to pay a $100 fee to park. Students are asking questions about why parking is no longer free, and the answer lies in the campus security center.

Mark Shafer, head of campus security, has worked for the past two years to ensure the safety and security of the Lipscomb campus. One major problem that he has noticed is the amount of invalid parking happening on campus.

He has seen students parking multiple cars, leaving cars for an extended period of time and parking an invalid vehicle. In one extreme case someone sighted a boat parked on campus. 

Alongside invalid parking on campus, limited parking options left Lipscomb with no choice but to charge students a fee. The university is centered in a residential area, and has no room to expand their parking lots. 

On a day to day basis, parking opportunities change. Parking Coordinator Grant Robarts expressed, “It seems that we have more parking this year than we do last year. Stokes was significantly underutilized today, but on Tuesdays parking is usually chaotic.”

Lipscomb Parking sends out weekly emails to students to inform them of closed parking lots due to events like Lipscomb Fridays, games, or Grandparents’ Day at the academy. While the emails are helpful for recognizing spots to avoid, restrictions disrupt students’ abilities to find consistent parking throughout the week. 

When benchmarking against other schools within the Nashville and the middle Tennessee area, Lipscomb was one of the only schools that still offered free parking last year. 

Shafer recognized that paying to park was an option the school wanted to avoid. He knew it would be “a hard pill” for students to swallow, but would improve campus safety. 

While this change to parking policies is fairly new, there are more changes coming to campus over the next few years that are expected to improve parking fairness and safety. 

Grant Robarts shared, “Over the coming years we hope to repaint parking lines and work on an AI camera assistance.” The improvements would help students see where parking would be available on campus. 

While not immediate fixes or drastic improvements to the parking situation, these improvements over the next few years could help students while making the parking cost more understandable. 

Feature image courtesy of @lipscomb.bad.parking