Professor Abandons His Eternal Search for a Parking Space

yup. i cannot imagine ignoring an acquaintance as we pass in the hallway. any acquaintance. maybe it’s a southern thing, but i like it. 

i’m at a small and friendly school (ca 3000ftes).  we do tend to give each other an emotional boost when it seems needed. or even when not.   seems to work — it’s a happy place. 

The paper’s focus is “social rewards” from relationships with administrators, not professional or departmental management.  Your comments might apply to overall job satisfaction, but not to this particular research.

This brings up an interesting question, though.  Is the faculty perception of rewarding social interaction dependant on their perception of administrator competence?  Are there any social interactions that are valued or perceived positively if there is an ineffective department chair/dean or the department/college is in disarray?

I wonder why lori-shull finds it surprising that faculty want to know if they matter to others with whom they work. Humans are social creatures who long to be noticed and affirmed, who want to know that we and our work matter, especially to others.

A recent study of why people stay in jobs revealed that they want to do work at which they are skilled, enjoy relationships with colleagues, contribute to their organizations, and work for organizations that do good work — this is all “soft” stuff, not the financial and other incentives that vceross believes “rational beings in the workplace typically seek from higher-ups.”

The only reason faculty wish to be acknowledged, in my view, is that we worked our tails off to get where we are (usually), and since many of our friends and acquaintances do not care a grote about whether a Canterbury Tales Manuscript was actually written or edited by Chaucer himself, we must turn to a scholarly audience that is, at least, sympathetic.  Scholars ought to be sympathetic to one another–particularly in the humanities–since many are fighting the same battle.  This underpins the desire for respect and value, not ego.  If administration values a professor’s work, administration will likely be slower to grind it under foot.  Some institutions have businessmen as presidents, and therefore the humanities suffer.  Humanist presidents tend to treat the humanities with more respect.  It’s a remarkably simple equation that translates into this: if the chair or dean treat a faculty member with respect and value that faculty member’s scholarship, that scholar is less likely to be a casualty of budget cuts or re-allocations.  Even if the budget constraints come, a faculty member who knows he or she is appreciated can work amicably toward the same academic goal, whereas a faculty member who feels disprized will see a cut as an attack on him or her and on the entire discipline.  The implications of a cold relationship with dept. and college-level administration are that opportunities might get missed, and one’s interests might get moved to the front of the chopping-block line.  Ergo, self-preservation, not personality stroking, might motivate collegiality–just as societies began as ways to preserve the individual, so might academic sociality provide cues for the academic about his or her potential longevity.

Well-put!  I stand corrected.
 

Hi Audrey

Interesting data collected.   It would have been interested to how the responses would have been different when it came to 2-year, 4-year and graduate institutions. 

Foremost, I am stunned at those who do not believe that “Hello” is not relevant.   So what those faculty are implying that they are not interaction with students with “hello”???  Have we come to a point that we now look at our work as robots or mechanical beings with a heart beat??

I agree with what the collected responses from the departmental chair but I EXPECT that my departmental chair AND my dean acknowledges every single faculty in the department / division.  Nothing short of that is expected.  If the chair or the dean has no time to say hello, they have no business of running the ship. 

I am not in agreement with the responses of the Dean.  I believe, as you go higher up in the food chain, the responsibility becomes higher and yes,  the Dean, must be expected to be completely informed of the faculty’s work (whatever Chair knows) and much more!!!  Dean’s position is more of a “social” position and not really an academic position whatsoever…  Interaction is a key for ANY Dean.

Both Chair and Dean’s position come with the realization that must be approachable and sociable….I have yet to meet a chair who lives his / her life in a cubicle all day.  

It is not the fact that the faculty members like myself are self-centered but if I am spending my time over what I consider 40 hours a week for the benefit of our students,  darn… I better be acknowledged by my chair at least once a semester… It is not a pat in my back but rather the Chair affirming the hard work we put in for our students.  Otherwise, I have no problem with adoption of clock-in and clock-out and just work for salary…. but wait……
1.  The administration will find out that we are grading at home and work more than 40 hours a week and may have to give us over-time.
2. Faculty may find out that per hour, we are making shameful salary… and may rather work at Retail store or car dealership as a salesman!

best,

Raza
_____________________________
Dr. Raza Khan
Dr.Raza.Khan@gmail.com

I thought I was reading The Onion for a second-lol

Why don’t they raise the price to the market-clearing price? They could use the revenue to fund the bike racks, bus passes, and garage construction.

Just came back from 20 minutes of my own fruitless search to this in my email. I guess it could be worse…

“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

and he meant it.

Isn’t there an old saying  taken from one of Shakespeare’s plays that might be adapted to this situation?  For want of a parking space, a venerable faculty member was lost.  :)

We are trying to promote more active transportation, which leaves more parking spaces for those who drive: http://www.unomaha.edu/bikeshare

Oh the horrors of leaving your home at 7am…which is what most people who work do every day.
Clearly the University needs to do more to meet demand, but it would not be that hard to carpool, bike, take public transport (arrive before the lot fills, obviously), etc.

It’s easy to dismiss this as another case of a crabby overprivileged ivory tower dweller.  But if it’s true he has to reserve 7.5 hours of his day to commute 10 miles and find parking it would drive me crazy long before 30 years.

Or better yet, give the parking to faculty, as a perq, and allow them to resell them at market value :).

Well, yes, unless you teach later in the day and then into the evening and unless you live in a rural area not served by public transportation.  Not everyone can bike and carpooling can be a Byzantine scheduling hell, given how much schools are staggering classes, because of a limited number of classrooms.

I just started at my third institution in 26 years and am happy to say parking at none of them has ever been an issue.  And, I can still get Thai food within 15 minutes and the NYT across the street!

Awful, they built a building on a 50 faculty/staff parking lot, gave them space in a lot that they don’t use and the one they do use is now over sold for f/s by about 200%.  City buses only come by campus about three times a day — and don’t go to all neighborhoods, let alone out of the city boundaries.  Biking — not a a road where the speed limit is 45 mph and people fly by and 60 or 70, with no sidewalks, no bike paths.  

I took early retirement in 2003 because of parking.  When asked why I retired so early, I always
answered “parking.” My non-academic friends never really believed me.  When parking took
so much time and energy from all of us, morale suffered, tempers were short and people began
to take less interest in campus life.  Much was lost when Parking Services became the 
second most important agency on campus…… second only to the Athletic Department.

Very amusing responses here and if parking is that bad at some colleges than the faculity senate should serious consider pushing for more 5 story parking garages instead of wasting expensive & limited land on a asphate jungle.  Reduce the carbon footprint by biking perhaps – good for the heart they say!. 

Why a garage.  Simple, in the north, no snow on the car when you get out. In the south, keep that car a lot cooler and helps lessen damage to the auto paint. Each college goes out for bonds to build academic buildings than get smart and get a academic parking lgarage.  Make lemonade out of parking lemon! INNOVATE!

This is a ridiculous proportion of overselling by the institution.  All institutions oversell parking to some degree, but this is outrageous and unethical.

If they’re overselling to this degree, it should be to fund multiple parking structures which will accommodate at least 80% of campus traffic.

Sounds like an Onion headline–but parking can be a major hassle on campus.

>1. Dr., not Mr., Middlemiss.
Chronicle style: “Use of ‘Dr.’ is reserved for medical doctors.”

Cars . . . too many . . . too little space . . . may the next century see a drastic decrease in them . . . as we move to collective public transport and pedestrian friendly cities . . . .

Parking is all over the place. At one large institution where I worked, you got a hangtag not only for a specific lot, but for a specific level or place in that lot. And you often had to walk a mile or more to a meeting. People at my most recent former institutions complained all the time but, in fact, they wanted to park near their offices, rather than walking ten minutes (tops) to their offices from the parking lot. Here at my new institution, where I am (again) an administrator, I hear occasional complaints but, at a small campus, the complaint tends to be, ‘I can’t park in the space right outside my office.’ The longest walk is under ten minutes.

As for me, unless I have to drive somewhere or the weather is bad, I take my bike. So this VP frees up a parking space for someone else.

Having said all this, Prof Middlemiss’s dilemma sounds unusually bad. But he must have been able to retire anyway. Oh, Canada!

What’s that saying?  Something like:  “A university is a collection of fiefdoms, departments, colleges, and empires held together by grievances over parking.”

For the Chronicle of all publications to perpetuate that offensive “convention” is baffling.  I thought this publication was supposed to be our “trade” magazine that advocates for a respected status for college professors?

Get a bicycle or a motorcycle?

Sure, if you can afford it, it’s great.  Where we are, a house in walking distance of campus can easily cost close to a million.

We need more faculty willing to do this: quit if they can’t find a parking space. Then we’d be rid of all the faculty with their heads in dark places… It’s a start…

Good riddance.

Reminds me of prof. Geim, 2010 nobel prize for physics. One of the first thing he asked at university was a parking spot at his building’s entrance. Asked why, he told this saves him 10 minutes each morning which he can no devote to work.

Not providing good parking or  public transport facilities for university employees to me sounds a bit like giving them slow computers on purpose.

We have this same problem too. I hate to say it but I’m glad it’s not just us! We also for a while had the great fortune of tearing up several of our parking lots for some absurd green initiatives, forcing faculty and staff to park a couple of blocks away on a side street. There are worse things but it certainly doesn’t make it okay.

The bean counters keep telling us to run like a business. Funny–none of the businesses I ever worked for — except colleges — charged their employees for parking.

NYC, like many European cities, has a pretty decent public transport infrastructure. However, parking is a major source of frustration in many European cities as well. 

I taught for several years at one university in Europe that was in the outer fringes of the downtown area. We had good bus service to downtown, but not so good service to the outlying areas where most faculty lived. The university had lots of parking spots, but no parking permits of any type. Supposedly, we couldn’t have faculty-only parking because that would offend their egalitarian ideals. We had completely open parking – so people who worked downtown (and had nothing to do with the university) would drive to campus, park, and take the bus the rest of the way into work. The lot was full by 8am, even though few classes started before 9am.

I wouldn’t say it was the reason I left, but it was one of the many little annoynaces that prompted me to return stateside. Now I pay about $100/yr to park right next to my building in a lot that is rarely over 3/4 full. Funny thing is that I like to start and end my day with a little walk, so I generally walk around campus for 10-15 minutes when arriving or leaving. But it is nice to be right next to my building when carrying stuff, running late, bad weather, etc.

First of all, freshman living on campus should not have a car.  This would improve grades and retention.  No drunk driving.  No going home on weekends. 

Then we need to adress the larger issue of failed urban planning.  Many of these schools were built when people walked or took the bus.

They are better off without him. He’s been in that seat for 31 years, its time to move on and make room for someone who appreciates the opportunity to teach. Obviously someone who doesn’t value their position enough to quit over something as insignificant as a parking space has outlived his/her usefulness in an academic environment, especially in today’s climate where teaching positions are increasingly harder to obtain, regardless of how competitive one may be. I am thankful every day that I have my position at a university, and would never dream of quitting over something like this. Good riddance.

Faculty and administrators get parking for $20/month (pre-tax).  Other employees are placed on a waiting list for available parking.  It used to take 13 years to get to the top of the waiting list.  It is currently more than 18 years.  Anyone without parking (and all students) park in a stadium lot about 1/2 to 3/4 mile from their work stations or class rooms and may ride a bus or walk.

Some whines never change. A few decades ago I worked at a campus with free parking, but the students complained that the faculty got to park in reserved spaces at the front of the lots. An editorial in the student newspaper asserted that faculty should park farthest from the buildings like grocery store clerks do, because the students were the customers. Seems to me that both that editorial writer and unclemrbig have misunderstood the function of a university. Sharing hard-won insights about the nature of our world is not analogous to selling soap.

parking where I am is about 1100/year with taxes, but i want all the folks who are talking about “market value”, “active transportation” and buses to remember that those with disabilities need the spots but there are certainly never enough spots near buildings.  And more often than not drivers drive there “for just a minute because no one was using it”. 

I’ll just say it: Parking is the one time in my life I’m glad I’m handicapped, and I have no qualms about  that

They don’t want to be capitalistic.

Pragmatist–you sure are a sanctimonious one! Try having to come to campus three or four hours before your teaching, hovering like a mosquito waiting for a space to open up, and then there’s the mad dash to try and reach the spot before someone else gets there. All of this, and what happens to your office hours for your students who you would really like to be around for? At the school where I endure this nonsense as an adjunct, when I complained that I feared actually missing my own class because I couldn’t park my car (I have a 62 mile commute, so don’t ask me to ride a bike or walk)  I was told I am a 38% employee and therefore do not “rate” faculty parking–and I get to do this looking at a faculty lot that at any given time is no more than half full. I even know of an administrator with a broken leg who was denied even a temporary disabled slot. On this campus, people refer to the parking office as “the Nazis.” It’s probably the one thing faculty and administration agree on. As someone else pointed out, managing parking lots is not rocket science. This is abuse of power, pure and simple. 

Good for you! May you find your retirement years full of discovery, enlightenment, and pleasure without the consternation of the bureaucracy. I am.

an argument in favour of virtual/online universities perhaps?

Such critical thinking here! I doubt that parking, in and of itself, led this man to quit. Horrible parking after accumulating 31 years of other grievances is what likely led him to quit. If you’ve never had a job where one more insipid comment or 4 hour meeting or bad boss or level of security added to the copier machine access doesn’t push you to do what you wanted to do anyway – quit – then maybe you’re the one with the privilege problem. It’s human. Leave him alone.

parking?

Parking is the #1 complaint for many, many college campuses. It will only get resolved when the arrogant, non-caring college administrators have their reserved parking spaces taken away from them.

The chair has his own space, but is only on campus three of five days. No reason the sign couldn’t say “reserved for chair M-T-R.

I served on a university parking committee, so I have a special perspective on the issue. Enforcement is a cash cow for the university. We made over $600,000 a year in student parking fines, and increased enforcement on days when it rained and snowed. They were the days the students were more willing to risk a ticket for parking illegally. Garages are expensive (we turned down a thousand space garage because of the 10 million dollar price tag). We ultimately shipped students off to the far end of campus, provided more shuttles, and told them to be grateful we didn’t make them walk. They were not happy.

As for faculty, why do you insist that the only viable option is to wait for a space to open in the lot of your choice? The first thing I learned as a new faculty member was that if I arrived at a certain time or day, parking was always available in this lot, but not in others. It took about a month. While I was not happy passing student vehicles parked illegally, I never turned down a opportunity to have them ticketed. I even told an ROTC professor to talk to his students about the role of honor when I caught one parked illegally in the faculty lot.

I’m sort of spoiled at my new job. Parking is $20/year, and the only lots that are ever full are the faculty ones. I part in the free lot 50 yards away, but my colleagues still complain about the lack of space. I just smile. 

For us, walking distance to campus would put you next to a couple of cows and a small stand of cattle egrets. 

I’ve never understood how an employer can fail to make it possible for its employees–faculty and staff alike–to actually get to the job site!  Whether it’s public transportation, shuttles or parking lots, not providing a means to get to work makes as much sense as not providing a classroom or office or a chalkboard.  

Wheezing after half a mile and four flights of steps?  Really, you should see your doctor for some tests.  I am 65 and that would not be strenuous for me.  Of course, I walk three miles daily.

He lived ten miles away? Maybe if he biked more often he would have a better temperment!

We had a delightful person the the parking office whose tag at the bottom of her emails was “Parking is my responsibility, not my fault.”

“citizenship

“The smug ignorance of the history of Canadian Armed Forces and their role in world events is appalling. Canadian men and women have served overseas many times since the 1890′s, particularly in World Wars I and II, Korea.”

Canadian women have served in combat “many times since the 1890′s, particularly in World Wars I and II, Korea”? That’s amazing! I’d never read that. Can you provide a source corroborating that claim? What? Didn’t think so.

“Canada provided peace keepers to Viet Nam to enforce the Paris Peace Accords and an additional 30,000 Canadians volunteered to serve in combat with other allied armed services.”

“Viet Nam”? There was no “Viet Nam” at the time. There were two nations: North Vietnam and South Vietnam. And how did “enforce[ing] the Paris Peace Accords” work out? So, what were those “peace keepers” really doing with their time in South Vietnam?

I also do not recall the term “peace keepers” being used prior to the 1990s, when it was applied to worthless UN soldiers in places like Kosovo, who stood by and watched as locals committed atrocities.

Canadian women “serv[ing] overseas” and “peace keepers.” You must be one of those Canadian defense experts.

Does anyone else find the caption under the foot image odd?  We have eight fossil bones from a foot and they happen to be identical to a common gorilla’s foot, but it is confidently asserted that the fossils are not from a gorilla???  I can’t smell or taste it, but it sure looks like fossil bones from a gorilla so where does my logic break down?  Either way, it seems like a rather weak foundation to build a conclusion on, pun intended :o).

Thanks for the reply.  I did read the article, but it still seems to follow the same logic that if it looks like gorilla bones, then they likely are and we don’t need to add any interpretation to them.  I realize there will be slight differences and a 4.4 million year old fossil could have seen additional deterioration during that time.  It just seems inconclusive to base a lot of what this article states as fact when there has been no discussion about the physiology of the (missing) hip for example or if these 8 bones show different attachment points for ligaments and tendons.  Can you see those sorts of things on a fossil that old?  Please understand I’m not trying to be rude or argumentative.  I simply want to understand how these conclusions are reached.