It is almost a freshman ritual, that long walk up from Shadowlands. Students groan and grumble as they leave the warmth of the car to enter the bleak midwinter. It is extremely tempting to simply set an alarm for before 8 AM and move vehicles in the morning. Maybe there are heroes among us, those students that will wake up on time and move their cars. Others, including myself, have woken around 8:30 to that dreaded email from Safety and Security.
Many of us know what it’s like to get a parking ticket. What students may not know is that they are able to appeal those tickets through the Covenant Parking Appeals Committee!
The appeals committee is composed of one faculty member, one staff member, and three students. When a student sends in their appeal, it is discussed and then voted on by the committee members during one of their weekly meetings. Depending on the reasons for the appeal, the committee will either reject the appeal, reduce the fee of the ticket, or remove the fee entirely.
The members of the appeals committee are all very dedicated to providing students with the opportunity to defend their case, and they even regard their work as fun.
“It is enjoyable, as odd as that sounds,” says Dr. Vos, Covenant sociology professor and appeals committee member, “and many of us have been re-volunteering for years.”
Justine Blick ’21 filed an appeal earlier last semester. “They ask you one simple question which is ‘why you are appealing?’…it wasn’t hard,” said Blick. “It probably took twenty minutes.” After sending her appeal to the committee, Blick received a 50 percent reduction to her fee.
“I was asking for grace to be extended to me,” Blick said.
“The wording of the appeals are important,” said Caroline Hulting ’20, a student member of the appeals committee, during one of their appeals meetings. “If they are a little more gracious about it, we tend to consider it with a little more grace.”
Additionally, Dr. Vos advised students to “be respectful and give us a strong sense that this will be your last ticket.” When a student shows sincere intent to learn from their mistakes, the appeals committee is going to take that into consideration, he says.
“We realize that there are contexts to violations that need to be heard. We want to hear that context,” said Dr. Vos.
The appeals committee is also aware of the occasions when violations are wrongfully distributed. For instance, Safety and Security may have the occasional “overzealous ticketer,” said Vos.
“In the past, we had a ticketer that was like the Unabomber of parking tickets,” said Vos. “He’d wear shades and lie in wait for students to violate the rules. When a sophomore girl or something would park on a line, he’d jump out and slap a ticket on the car.” Said Dr. Vos. This ticketer’s spree didn’t last very long. “He was eventually fired,” Vos said.
Whenever Safety and Security is experiencing the occasional internal problem, the appeals committee knows. While staff members of Safety and Security do not vote on student appeals, they still attend the appeals meetings to provide the committee with pertinent information regarding the citations.
In order to avoid tickets, Vos said “Don’t park in visitor lots!” and “Read your emails.” They also recommend that you familiarize yourself with the Covenant’s parking regulations. They want to help students out, but they are not going to excuse violations for blatant negligence or ignorance.