Parking, sustainability popular topics at USU’s Gripe Night
Utah State University students took to USU’s second annual Gripe Night to express a wide variety of concerns, but one particular issue seemed to plague students’ minds: parking.
“Parking enforcement gives out seven times as many citations as they have spaces,” said USU student Aiden French, citing the USU Parking office as a source to back his numbers.
Other gripes about parking involved the safety of overselling passes, and how many students struggle to find a spot even with a pass.
“When you’re overselling parking, you’re forcing students to drive around for thirty minutes wasting gas to find a spot,” said Student Advocate VP Paulina Rivera-Soto, “this makes it very unsafe for students who speed to a spot before someone else does.”
Along with the safety concerns, Rivera-Soto also pushed for reform on holding class registration due to unpaid parking tickets.
“I think there needs to be a discussion on monetary fines and putting holds on registration,” she said. “When students are struggling to pay for food and medicine and they have to choose between necessities and paying a citation to register, that’s a problem.”
For the past two years, the Utah State University Student Association Government Relations Council gives students seeking to rant about campus annoyances and nuisances an opportunity to “come gripe, complain, and make fun of everything USU” according to promotional posters around campus.
Although IDEA surveys and the My Voice on Banner serve to hear student opinions and criticisms, this years Gripe Night had more to offer griping students than just a confirmation email.
“We are revamping how we are doing everything, and adding prizes for participants” said former Student Advocate VP Sam Jackson,”We have a QR code so you can scan to get a response to your gripe, so we’ll see what the most common gripes are.”
“Students who would like a response to your gripe, we have the QR code to answer the more serious gripes from students”
Like last year, students were able to either tweet their complaints tagged #USUGripeNight or stand at the mic and voice their opinions to GRC in person.
Each year, subjects such as rising tuition costs, diversity and inclusion, USU dining services, and parking and transportation are commonplace. This year, most Gripe Night attendees discussed parking.
Along with popular topics like parking, some students expressed concern about the sustainability of campus, wondering how compost and facilities work at USU.
“There is only one compost bin on campus behind the Biology and Natural Resources building,” said a participant, ”use it if you can find it but we need more.”
“USU used to have a composter by the Living Learning Community,” said College of Humanities and Social Services Senator Naomi Ward, “after summer it was gone because facilities had thrown it away without telling us. It was hundreds of dollars.”
Along with compost, many students had thoughts on how well campus facilities maintenance services around campus such as bathrooms and lights.
“My gripe about how some of the bathrooms on campus are mad sketchy,” one student said, “I have seen literal cockroaches in the BNR bathroom.”
Former Diversity and Organizations Vice President Joshua Johnson raised concerns for facility related student safety.
“How come it takes you eight to nine months to replace the lights on campus,” he continues, ”a lot of people feel unsafe around campus, replace the lights.”
@McKayJohnsen