It happens all too often.
Students seeking health care services find themselves unable to park in the Longest Student Health Center parking lot because other students park there to shorten their walks to class.
Immobile students, who have just injured an ankle or knee, must walk from parking lots farther from the health center.
Students with stomach viruses and pains sit in the office for hours at a time only to walk to their car and find a yellow envelope behind the windshield wipers.
A student five minutes late for class finds an empty space in the patient lot and parks his car there so he won’t have to spend any more time looking for another.
MSU President Charles Lee said these are a commons problem that have recently increased.
“Sick students either can’t park in the health center parking lot, or they find a ticket on their windshield,” he said.
Health center assistant director Bill Broyles said students with appointments can take parking tickets to the cashier for cancellations.
“We are trying to serve the ill,” he said. “We sure don’t want someone sick getting a ticket and having to pay for it.”
Broyles and other healthcenter officials have proposed a plan for a gate, which students can push a button code to enter. To get out, the office will give them an access code.
“This will save the patient extra steps,” Broyles said.
The campus planning and traffic committees endorsed the proposal, and the Executive Council agreed to it. “That technology is expensive,” said Broyles.
The health center has to handle all of the expenses though, he said.
“Payment for an electronic gate is up to us,” he said. “So this plan is still up in the air.”
“If it happens, it won’t be perfect. But at least we can deter parking problems from patients who are ill,” he added. “The point is, we want parking for our patients only.”