It seems like all UH officials ever talk about anymore is how the University is striving to meet up to Tier One standards to attract the best and brightest students and athletes.
We’re trying to build a new football stadium and renovate Hofheinz Pavilion while also trying to build new residence and dining halls — not to mention our attempt at raising admissions requirements. But has anyone stopped to think what students at UH students actually want?
It’s not news to anyone that parking on this campus is terrible. It can take students more than an hour to find parking between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Sure, students receive e-mails at the beginning of the semester, warning them about the situation, but it’s not realistic for students to plan to come to school an hour in advance to make their hour and a half classes.
Furthermore, during game days — even for non-UH teams — parking is even more restricted. Should we really be putting more importance on sporting events than we are putting on education?
So what is the University doing to fix this problem? The construction of the new parking garage next to Robertson Stadium is a start, but when did UH start construction on it?
UH is also planning to build more residence halls, completely ignoring that the ones we have are unable to reach full occupancy. And don’t think an increased number of students in dorms would alleviate the parking situation.
With most dining options closed and a lack of things to do on campus during nights and weekends, students need their cars on campus just to entertain themselves.
Because UH is in the Third Ward with no viable dining options off-campus within walking distance, it forces students to either drive somewhere else or hope they don’t have a history of heart disease in their family. Maybe the University should be less focused on attracting new students and focus more on satisfying its current students’ needs.
"Should we really be putting more importance on sporting events than we are putting on education?"
So what exactly does having parking problems have to do with education? I have never once, in all my days at UH, ever been late to class because I was too busy circling the parking lot.
Plus, they are building a new parking garage….
"The construction of the new parking garage next to Robertson Stadium is a start, but when did UH start construction on it?"
Was there any research done before writing this article? If you had bothered to research you would have found out that the new stadium garage began its construction last summer (Summer 2011) and will be completed and ready to be used this upcoming summer, Summer 2012. So that will be about a year that it took them to construct it. That sounds reasonable to me. Approximately two semesters of construction to build a building that will be useful for many semesters to come? How long did you expect it to be constructed under?
Yet some of us do get to school that early for class because we know the parking situation. We're also probably those same people who see a spot and park instead of driving to the front and circling like a shark for a close spot. You see we take personal responsibility for ourselves. If it takes you over an hour to find parking that's on you. As for what else they are doing this is the second parking garage construction since ive been enrolled. So yes they are doing all they can. They inform you, they have a website that you can check parking conditions, and are building more spaces, what more do you want? There's no valets here. Also there are seven or eight places to eat right off campus, but why do we need that if forms are as empty as you say they are?
Yay, another article that whines about parking. Maybe I'm biased because I don't have a car and live on campus, but even if I did have a car, I'm not going to continue whining about parking situations that will always be an issue regardless. There's honestly only so much space to put parking lots, without having to turn this University into one big ass parking lots with a cluster of buildings in it. There are solutions called taking METRO's Park and Ride, carpooling, vanpooling, biking and other stuff that that would work just as well.
How does The Daily Cougar know how much occupancy there is? Can we have some numbers and sources please? I live at the Quads and it seems plenty full enough. There's at least plenty of people at the dining halls.
But it's true about the dining and entertainment options pretty much. It's like there's only the UC Game Room, Rec, and Cougar Den for entertainment. It's surprising how a university as good as ours, hasn't been able to push some gentfrication onto the fringes. Instead, there's a Burger King and Wendy's that won't accept walk-ups after 8PM. Only decent ones IMO are Shipley's and Frenchy's.
this article is seriously flawed. the new garage opening up this summer aside, there's three more garages in the pipeline to be built over the next few years.
They chose the wrong topics to complain about. The new parking garages will really help for all the people who prefer to pay more to park a few minutes closer to class.
I would totally vote for a fee that improves advising, adds another building plus employees for Financial Aid so that the whole process of receiving aid wouldn't be such a morass, or refurbishes some of the older buildings on campus (like Heyne and Agnes Arnold), or a fee that is used to give researchers who are given teaching positions some basic education on HOW TO TEACH WELL, and requires them to take a basic refresher course every year.
The title is spot on, the content, not so much.