A reward for parking properly

Madelynn Greenslade

grensladem@findlay.edu

@Madelynn_G15

There are 3,602 marked parking spots around campus, and you could be one of the lucky 300 students or staff that are ‘Caught Parking Right’ this semester.

Chief of Police and Director of Security William H. Shaw came up with the ‘Caught Parking Right’ program two years ago to reward students for parking properly around campus. Shaw says he hands out ‘Caught Parking Right’ tickets every day to completely random cars and has 300 to give out this semester. The incentive on the ticket is 10% off a purchase at The Refinery and then entry into a drawing to win a $25 gift card to The Refinery.

“It’s kind of a community service from campus safety to say hey we appreciate that you’re obeying the rules and that’s a good thing,” said Shaw. “We’d rather do this than write you a ticket believe it or not.”

Shaw also says that he tries to add a personal touch to giving these tickets out and attempts to catch people getting in or out of their cars. He says those students are normally very appreciative.

Caila Case, a third-year psychology to Doctor of Occupational Therapy Student, has a resident parking pass and normally parks behind the pre-vet house. Case said she knows about the ‘Caught Parking Right’ program because of the emails students have received, and also because her roommate freshman year had received one though she has yet to get one of her own.

Case expressed that she does not think this program influences students to park correctly around campus.

“College students, who are normally running late, are going to park wherever they see a spot,” said Case.

Shaw speaks about this issue as well and says the number of parking spots around campus is not the problem.

“There’s plenty of parking, they [students] just want to park right outside the door and nobody wants to walk,” said Shaw. “We have commuter parking over here [by the security office] but they don’t want to park and walk.”

Shaw says they have added more commuter spots around campus to try and solve this problem but is unsure how helpful that has been.

Shaw says one semester he was going to try a new spin on the program and make it ‘Caught Parking Oiler Proud’ for the cars with oiler stickers on them, but he wasn’t finding too many. He says that if this program changes in any way he may try this again in the future.

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