Newspapers / University of North Carolina … / March 14, 2012, edition 1 / Page 2
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J 2 I The Blue Banner I 3.142012 Photo by Gabriel Ainslie - Assistant Photography Editor Security guard Dennis Thompson writes a ticket Feb. 24. UNCA faculty recently expressed concern with policy changes. Faculty questions parking policies Jackie Starkey jstarkey@unca.edu Asst. News Editor Factions of UNC Asheville faculty are heated regarding changes to parking policies, ac cording to postings in the uni versity’s online faculty forum. The changes, effective last August, require all faculty, staff and students to display a park ing decal at all times on cam pus. Previously, permits were not needed to park in UNCA lots after 5 p.m. and on week ends. Parking permits cost un dergraduates $100 for the aca demic year. “Usually parking policies are set to manage a scarce resource,” said Scott Wal ters, associate professor in the drama department. “It doesn’t seem necessary to manage when it’s not scarce. Why would you ticket the only car in a lot?” The issue was brought to the faculty forum after a non permit holding faculty member received a ticket while parked in a campus lot on a Saturday. “I don’t think he intended to start some bruhaha,” said Professor Duane Davis of the philosophy department. “He wanted to point out a policy problem, I assume.” Davis said faculty and staff received an August email not ing changes to policy, which included links to additional in formation and permit registra tion. UNCA provides lots for resi dents and commuter students, faculty, staff and visitors. UNCA has 22 on-campus lots, with additional lots located on Vivian Street and Edgewood Road. “I assume (faculty) jumped right to the links to get their new stickers,” Davis said. “Busy people do not read all of their emails.” Walters agreed with Davis, citing a breakdown in commu nication between faculty, ad ministration and enforcement. “An email was sent,” Wal ters said. “However, the rami fications were not immediately clear.” These changes, brought to staff attention this month by means of an email-based fo rum, incited discussion on pol icies and decision making on UNCA’s campus. “Some people got dispropor tionately angry,” Davis said. The matter of after-hours parking was eclipsed by con cerns that staff and faculty non permit holders became targets for campus ticketing following the changes. “There was once a time when it was strongly encouraged that we not drive to campus,” Walters said. “It was one of those campus-wide efforts to be green. Now we are almost required to purchase permits, and the ticketing could be con- stmed as some kind of punish ment.” Walters said he believes that punishment was not the mo tive for the policy alteration, but found recent faculty ticket- ings to be the unintended con sequences of more stringent policy enforcement. Reactions to the online fomm further heated at the suggestion that campus enforcement was cross-checking license tags with UNCA employees, a prac tice that received mixed feel ings from faculty partaking in the forum. “The forum is used by some to say things that upset them, to some degrees of success,” Da vis said. “I was surprised that it went viral. There is the sym bolic problem and then there is the literal value.” Davis said, as far as he was concerned, the possibility of the campus police having ac- see PARKING on page 4 Environmental groups partner to create green regulations Ted Kendrick The National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Cen ter, UNC Asheville’s applied environmental research cen ter, recently established work ing relationships between two technology industry leaders. Riverside and Locus Technol ogies. “These alliances will bring new opportunities for our cam pus and students,” said Jim Fox, director of NEMAC. NEMAC was created in 2003 to teach the importance of global issues such as energy and water consumption, cli mate and weather change and other natural hazards. Work ing with UNCA undergradu ate students, scientific profes sionals and many partnerships, NEMAC helps solve the great er problems that seem unsolv- able alone. “We employ over 20 students a year at NEMAC. They work as active team members on real projects and many of our students have gone on to work for groups that they have in terned for through NEMAC,” Fox said. “We see the same thing happening with our two new partnerships. The local office for Locus was opened by two ex-NEMAC employ ees, Dr. Todd Pierce and Jeff Hicks. Jeff was a student in tern for NEMAC, then be came an employee of NEMAC when he graduated from UNC Asheville. Locus is a Silicon Valley company, and the two of them got very high paying jobs with Locus and opened up the regional office for Locus here in Asheville. Since that time, they have employed an other UNC Asheville alumni. Fox said the partnership presents a chance for commer cial and government resources see NEMAC on page 5 tkendric@unca.edu - Staff Wrifer
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