I recently attended the parking forum that was hosted by the parking and transportation services office (PATS). Given the current opinion of this office on campus, I was excited to see them reaching out to the community at large and solicit direct and continuous feedback. The point of this letter is not my or anyone else’s hatred/love of the parking on campus. I am more concerned with surprising attitude that continues to be displayed by a group of people who don’t seem to understand that in the end, they should answer to the students. The attitude that was displayed was not one of welcoming questions and discussion. It seemed clear that a decision on the ‘best’ path had been decided well before the forum.

“You need to get off your high horse.” A direct quote from one PATS employee I spoke to. My high horse? Try my high cost. Yearly tuition for an undergraduate is $25,362. While I have grown accustomed to PATS not listening to me, actually dressing me down for expressing my opinion and concern is not only disconcerting but highly unacceptable to me as a customer of this institution. This is especially true in the context of where I was. PATS hosted an open forum at which only 2 actual employees were present (my count, they had hired consultants to help) and responded rudely to feedback?

“Are you calling me a liar?” Another direct quote from one PATS employee I spoke to. No I wasn’t calling you a liar. I was asking how PATS carried out the parking audit. It was brought up as evidence supporting PATS’ point of view and showing how heavily utilized all lots are. PATS provided a single number as representative of the usage of each parking lot. However, when queried, this employee responded angrily to any inquisition of methodology, level of data collected, sample size, etc. The T in RIT is for Technology. We are loud and proud of our heritage as people who believe in and are educated in math and science. PATS used data they have collected, but refuse to tell us how it was collected, or even show us the data. It makes it very hard for us to accept your conclusion when data is treated so secretly. Why is this information not publicly published? If PATS actually did the audit, they should publish the actual data! When a response to inquiry is defensive and rude, people assume the worst.

I’ll close with one more observation. I came to discuss things with the PATS office; I did not come to listen to your employees complain about how hard their job is. Unfortunately, in the real world, “we’re trying” or “it’s hard” are not acceptable answers. We don’t use those answers on coops; you shouldn’t use them here. Customer service and treating students like competent adults will go a lot further than you think. That would start with a reasonable response to this letter.

Forgive me for being a few weeks behind your current issue. As I scrolled through the February 22, 2008 Reporter, I stopped suddenly at the mention of my dear old alma mater. No, not RIT.

This is the part where I admit I’m an impostor—I don’t actually go to RIT. What caught my attention was the letter to the editor about the mother of all stereotypical “big state schools,” Penn State. As for my ties to RIT: my boyfriend is a Tigers grad student (computer science, of course!), so I make frequent trips up to Rochester.

I love my school with all my heart. I bleed blue and white, never miss a football game, and own more Nittany Lions gear than I care to admit on the pages of this magazine. But when I visit RIT, I experience a whole other piece of the puzzle I feel is missing from my college experience: a sense of belonging.

I’m a neuroscience major who almost went to art school. I’ve been taking American Sign Language classes for two semesters now, and I’m really interested in Deaf culture. I’ll put the icing on the cake and admit I’m an avid gamer, and would probably drop out of school to play Settlers of Catan day and night, if it didn’t mean living in my parents’ basement.

RIT is a melting pot of everything I love. I can sit in your trendy library café decorated with vintage furniture and student artwork while overhearing animated debates about the latest Firefox release. NTID students are signing everywhere, and nobody’s afraid to walk around with binary messages on their shirts. It’s like every niche I love has found a home at RIT.

I don’t think I would go as far as to say Penn State is “a whole flippin’ wheat field” of “casual sex, marijuana and alcoholism,” but they definitely have their place. Yet, as a person who isn’t into any of the above, I still haven’t caught on to what’s so desirable about the typical college experience. I guess it’s your call—an indie-filled Friday night, catching a movie at the Little Theatre, or an awkward Saturday morning, waking up on the beer-stained couch of a frat.

Like I said, I really do love my alma mater. But there are parts of RIT that you can’t capture at a big state school; those parts of me will always feel a little lost here at Penn State.

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