The sun peaks out over the horizon, it’s fiery orange rays stretching across the Earth. It’s 5 a.m and sophomore nursing student Kaleigh Halloran’s alarm clock goes off. She wakes up at the crack of dawn every Tuesday in order to make it to Boston on time for her clinical. Having her car on campus makes a huge difference for her in terms of traveling to and from Boston and Beverly. However, Kaleigh finds that with being a nursing student, she struggles with the new parking enforcement. Every other day of the week, most of Kaleigh’s classes are located in the nursing building, across campus from her residence hall, Reynolds. The two buildings are about a twenty minute walk from each other. She has early morning classes and often times struggles to get to class on time when walking. Since she pays three hundred dollars a year to have her car on campus, she figured an easy solution would be to drive to class. There’s a parking lot outside of the building that she can park at which is usually empty. At the beginning of the year, Kaleigh was driving to and from the nursing building for class which ultimately led to her receiving two parking tickets. Because Kaleigh lives in Reynolds, she technically is not permitted to park on the other side of campus, no matter what time of day. “I understand that the color-coded lots were put into place for organizational purposes, however, I think it is extremely unfair that I cannot park at the building that all of my classes are held in, simply because I live in the other side of campus,” Halloran said. “Had I known this would’ve been the case, I never would have wasted $300 of my money on a parking pass that essentially does nothing for my benefit.”
It’s not surprising that a college that has been around for seventy-seven years would undergo a few changes. When first built, Endicott’s campus was an all women establishment and had minimal buildings. Today, the campus is co-ed and consists of multiple different academic buildings, residence halls, dining services, athletic fields, recreational spots, and more. The multiple different transformations of Endicott from 1939 to present day are all very interesting, but one that has made impressive progress is parking. Many students on campus bring their cars to campus, as well as faculty and staff. With a student population of about five thousand, plus all faculty and visitors, this requires a large amount of parking opportunities in high demand. When Endicott was first built, there were little to no parking spots available at the institution, shown below by an aerial view photo of Endicott’s campus from the 1940’s, provided by the Endicott College Archive Museum.
Photo Taken From Endicott College Archives
Fast forward twenty years to 1960, and an aerial view of campus shows that it has increased dramatically. More buildings have been added as well as a few parking lots.
The process of adding more buildings and parking lots to campus has been an ongoing trend since the 60’s and continues throughout today. A closer look at shots from 1992 show a vast increase in parking options for residents and commuters as well.
Photo Taken From Endicott College Archives
Campus maps from 2004 and 2016 show the difference a few years can make. From the late 90’s to early 2000’s, you see that a vast amount of buildings and parking lots were added to campus. From 2004 to 2016, you can also see a few new building additions as well as parking lots.
Photo Taken From Endicott College Archives
Photo Taken From Endicott College Archives
Photo Taken From Endicott College Archives
Photo Taken From Endicott College Website
Comparatively, the 2004 and 2016 maps are very similar, minus a few aspects. The map from 2016 allows us to see how many parking lots Endicott has, which seems to be around thirty or so. However, even with the vast amount of parking options that seem to be available, many students feel frustrated with the spaces offered to them. Within the past year, Endicott added a brand new residence hall to their campus. Peter Frates Hall, which houses around two hundred students, was finished in the late summer of 2016.
Photo Taken By Regan Jameson
However, the new addition of this residence hall meant destroying one of Endicott’s largest parking lots, Lot 16, or also known to students as “Brindle lot”. This caused a great deal of frustration among students as they struggled with having to park in different lots, mostly off campus. Lot 16 still exits, just not as large as before.
One of the main reasons for this change in parking enforcement was the creation of this residence hall, combined with the loss of Lot 16. “I feel that the addition of Frates to Endicott’s campus did take a lot of parking that was needed, particularly by the staff that works in college hall,” Halloran said. “Having done my work study there last year, I always heard about the struggles of finding a spot for work in the morning. With this lot being taken away, this causes employees of the college to park in the Manchester and Gloucester lots, further taking away parking from students.” To help fix this problem, Lot 35 was built. Located on the east side of campus behind the Physical Plant building, the lot offers about forty spaces for students and faculty to park in, but is typically unfavored by students because of it’s distance from central campus. “Lot 35 is a long walk from where I live,” Sophomore Emily Garland, who resides in Reynolds as well, said. “When I return to campus late at night, it's not a comfortable walk to make alone. In the winter, I know it will be even more inconvenient.” Depending on where you live on campus, the east or west side, you will receive a color that correlates to lots specifically near your residence hall. Residence halls such as Stoneridge, Bayview, Marblehead and Standish, which are located on the west side of campus, have a green sticker. Reynolds, Brindle, Frates, Endicott, Williston, Gloucester, Manchester, Woodside, Beacon, Winthrop, Hawthorne, Alhambra, and Rogers, all residence halls on or near the east side, are able to park in lots that correlate with a red sticker. Some other parking decal colors include blue for faculty staff and commuters, yellow which are for contract employees such as those who work at The Wylie Inn and for Sodexo, orange decals which are new and for adjunct faculty since they do a far amount of traveling, and silver decals which are for Doctor Wylie’s staff. Captain Kerry Stokes of Endicott Public Safety said to help students adjust to the new system, Public Safety implemented a two week warning period at the beginning of the semester. Since then, she believes enforcement has been overall pretty consistent and that although there was an adjustment when part of Lot 16 diminished, with the addition of Lot 35 things have been pretty seamless. “There haven’t been too many issues with illegal parking or not parking in accordance with decals,” Stokes said. “This plan, the 2 division of campus - people seem to support it, and we hope to keep it consistent.” Some of the larger lots such as Overflow (Lot 28) and Lot 35 can be shared by all decals. Although Public Safety is aware of some student concern and complaints have been noted, Stokes is confident that the current parking plan is working, for the most part, for members of the community.