Cathy Reeve, director of Parking and Transportation Services, fielded questions from the Graduate and Professional Student Council Monday night that focused on parking rates and the availability of parking spaces on campus and at the Medical Center.
Reeve said she would like to see the cost of the parking fee remain relatively constant next year, but added that parking and transportation is a "cost-recovering" department that must compensate for rising expenses.
"Any [rise in the parking fee] will be based on new expenses that we have to take on," Reeve said. "[But] we want to maintain the status quo as much as possible."
Students expressed concern about the apparent need for more parking spaces in the various lots, adding that the closing of the lot behind the Biological Sciences Building--because of the construction of the new French Science Center--affected parking space availability.
"We still have the fear of selling too many permits," Reeve said. "We have to ask ourselves, 'What is the tolerance point? How many spaces do we issue without crowding the lots?'... [But] we are going to find parking for everyone who wants it."
The university parking and transportation department merged with its Medical Center counterpart last September. Students voiced concern over kinks yet to be sorted out in the merged Parking and Transportation Services, ranging from online registration for Medical Center parking to the availability of parking spaces close to the hospital for those who work there late into the night.
"[The University and Medical Center parking departments] still have a lot to learn about each other," Reeve responded. "We have double the resources, double the demand, double the revenues. So everything is twice as much to look at."
Reeve will meet with the Duke Transportation Advisory Committee--made up of graduate and undergraduate students, faculty and staff--March 17 to discuss ways to improve parking options for students. She said she would use the question and answer session as an opportunity to bring graduate and professional student feedback to the DTAC meeting.
IN OTHER BUSINESS:
GPSC Treasurer Heather Dean, who is also the GPSC representative on the Executive Committee of the Graduate Faculty, reported that ECGF was considering implementing an "annual progress report." The proposal would require graduate and professional students to fill out an online form summarizing their activities and accomplishments so ECGF would be able help students who have "fallen through the cracks" in their specific schools.
Dean introduced the topic to GPSC so she could use the feedback in an ECGF meeting later this week. GPSC members argued that the progress report would not accurately gauge if a student had "fallen through the cracks" because, as they argued, a student would not want to admit that he was not on track.
"The feedback was pretty negative," Dean said. "[The proposed annual progress report] might not be the best way to catch the people it is supposed to."
Lara Oliver, chair of the student life subcommittee, also announced that GPSC would hold its spring formal April 2 at the Millennium Hotel.
Brian O'Dwyer, chair of the parking and transportation services subcommittee, revealed that the winner of his committee's raffle for a parking space anywhere on campus (or a refund if the winner already had a space and wanted to keep it) was graduate student Jeffrey Headd. Students who completed an online parking survey, sponsored by GPSC, were automatically entered into the raffle.
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