October 2, 2011

Nobel? Sure. Parking Space? Maybe.

Parking on Campus: a Vanishing Perk 3

Jay Premack for The Chronicle

"I've never seen a campus where people want to walk half a mile," says an official who has worked at several colleges. "People want to park within a 50-yard walk of where their office is."

By Don Troop

Exactly how bad is parking on some college campuses? This bad:

  • After Andre Geim shared the Nobel Prize in Physics last year, administrators at the University of Manchester, in England, asked what would entice him to stay. A parking space near his building was Mr. Geim's sole request. He got it.
  • At Minnesota's Normandale Community College, students are known to arrive at 6 a.m. to get parking and then study in their cars for two hours before class. Others idle