Parking--and its consequences

For nearly 28 years here I offered no sympathy to students who acquired campus parking tickets. "If you don't want tickets," I would say, "don't park where you shouldn't." Now that Parking Services has $25 of my puny remuneration as a faculty member, I have switched my allegiance to the student side.

Toward the end of last fall quarter my colleague who supervises our TAs asked me routinely to visit the class of one of our assistants and to write up a report on her demonstrated teaching skills. I routinely accepted the assignment even though the class met elsewhere (the psychology/journalism building) and at a time (6:15 p.m.) which put a big dent in my happy hour/dinner hour.

I drove down early, not knowing the parking situation around this unfamiliar territory at this unfamiliar time of day. I was amazed to find rush-hour­like traffic and parking glut. In order to be at the young woman's classroom early, I grabbed a parking spot labeled "reserved 24 hours" in green paint and designed for patients of the psychology clinic. Seeing so many unoccupied spaces reserved for the psychologically challenged led me to believe that a wave of mental disorders of even epidemic proportions would not fill the available space that evening.

After my supervisory duties I returned to my truck sitting in a virtual sea of unfilled green-gilded parking spaces, to find a parking ticket on my windshield.

Next morning, in order to test whether these 24-hour spaces were truly needed, I made a call to the psychology clinic, pretending a need for urgent psychological counseling which I would have to receive at, say, 8 p.m. or so, because of my daytime work schedule. Imagine my great surprise to learn that I could secure an appointment for only a time during regular daylight office hours at the clinic!

Upon learning from Parking Services that I might appeal my ticket, I wrote my appeal based upon the above facts, stressing I felt that I truly had justice on my side. I also promised that, should my appeal fail, I would resign from any non-budgeted duties I was presently performing.

My appeal was turned down, not by the faculty appeals committee of the University Council (which I had anticipated), but by a special parking appeals committee headed not by a faculty member but by an administrator.

I promptly wrote and sent to Parking Services my $25 check, on which I wrote "For: Psych. Dept. parking scam." The check was cashed.

I then wrote a letter to President Knapp and the office of the vice president for academic affairs resigning as parliamentarian for University Council and from the Student Dishonesty panels in which I had been participating since their inception, explaining why I felt that justice had been left unserved. Copies went to Parking Services, the chair of the Parking Appeal Committee and the head of the psychology department, Joseph D. Allen.

This letter drew three responses:

1. Fran Rauschenberg wrote me a sympathetic letter to say she empathized with my position and that my presence on the dishonesty panels would be missed. She thanked me for past service.
2. Bruce Shutt, registrar and University Council secretary, called me in a panic, wondering where he would get a parliamentarian for the next meeting on short notice. I referred him to the chair of the Parking Appeals Committee, in hopes he would have a suggestion. I should have offered my services for my usual fee for such work for a profit-making organization (or an organization which behaves as a profit maker), $95 per hour.
3. Dr. Allen, psychology head, wrote me a delightfully humorous and interesting letter. He explained that he was here when the psychology/journalism building was constructed and the green parking spaces laid out, and that the latter were for patients, but reserved only so that "the disturbed" could park for their appointments between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Pointing out that "no one has ever accused the UGA Parking Services of not doing its fair share of producing revenue for the university," he sympathized with my plight and offered to assuage my anguish by a treat to pizza and a beer.

Charles R. Gruner is retired as professor of speech communication.