I would like to voice my opinion on NIU’s parking situation. I am glad to see that President LaTourette has finally become involved in the issue. But I do not feel that he is taking the students’ rights into perspective. One of his proposals is to eliminate freshman parking entirely. His justification for this plan is that “since most freshmen live in the residence halls, there is really no need for them to have cars on campus.” Autos are needed as much by freshmen as any other student. If the administration is going to eliminate parking, it should not be just freshman parking.

If LaTourette takes students’ rights into perspective, he will realize that freshmen do have jobs and do go home on the weekends. I hope that the parking situation would not influence a prospective student’s decision to come here to NIU. But I have found that it is more convenient to drive myself home or to my job than to have to depend on others.

The only sensible way to correct this problem is to add more parking space—through an increase in cost for a parking permit or with existing funds.

Terrence McLaughlin

freshman

pre-communications