While I am used to feeling like a number in our quantity over quality soceity, something just happened that I have to share.
I attend Ivy Tech Community College, and have since 1999 off and on. In that time they have exponentially grown to become the school with the largest enrollment in the state of Indiana, with currently over 110,000 students enrolled. As the state has lost it’s large manufacturing base of employment, people (like me) have went to school to help us find new careers.
Over the past couple of years, communications from the school have went downhill as far as information goes. Most communications are either a weekly job or volunteer posting, informational updates, or the one that really puts a thorn in my side, “Pick Ivy Tech.” Essentially an advertisment sent to students. Why are they wasting money sending letters and emails to people already enrolled asking them to pick Ivy Tech? Haven’t they already?
This last incident is the “straw that broke the camel’s back.” The Bloomington campus has outgrown it’s space, and until they can build additions they have leased annex campuses. While this can be great for situations such as this one, it can also be a nightmare. The Liberty Drive campus does not have adequate parking. While it is a pain, I’m not complaining. I work at IU where parking is sometimes not even a possibility.
This email was sent to all Bloomington students:
Additional Parking Options for Liberty Drive:
1. Park across the street from the Liberty Drive campus. The spaces
reserved for Ivy Tech students are located in the parking lot previously
occupied by the MCL Cafeteria; across the street and just south of the
Liberty campus.
2. Park at the main campus and take the Rural Transit shuttle to the
Liberty Drive campus.
Click the link below to download the Rural Transit schedule:
http://services.bloomington.ivytech.edu/media/pdf/academics/IvyTechBus.pdf
For more information about Rural Transit, go to:
http://www.ivytech.edu/bloomington/about/shuttle.html
While these options are helpful, they create equal if not larger problems. For those of you who know the area, Liberty Drive is a busy road that has many large businesses on it, and it is a major thoroughfare for the west side of Bloomington. Also crossing a 4 lane road is a dangerous affair, as a student in high school I remember students being severely injured and even killed on occasion trying to do the same thing to get lunch. Due to this, MCCSC closed their campuses and upgraded their cafeterias. There is no intersection near that has a crosswalk, and the road curves at this point as well making visibility for the drivers an issue as well.
I felt a response was necessary to highlight these potentially fatal flaws. While hindsight is 20/20, I could have left a couple paragraphs and a few remarks out. I was mainly trying to give them constructive criticism, and point out alternatives.
Here is my response:
While the additional options you have listed are helpful, please let me remind you of the hazards and reasons why these options are not feasible.
1. Park at MCL. While there is plenty of parking at that location, and in the scope of things, close, it is also very hazardous. It is hazardous for the same reasons why Bloomington High School South closed it campus. People were hurt and died. It is dangerous for people to cross 4 lanes of traffic at any time on that road, let alone rush hour. I hope your recommendation does not lead to serious injuries or death for anyone.
2. Park at the Main Campus and take the Rural Transit. While this option might be okay for full-time students, but for people like me who work full time and take classes when they can, this is impossible. I can barely make it to class on time, let alone wait for a bus that comes once or twice an hour.
My wife brought up a great idea that would really ease the parking situation at liberty drive. Perhaps you could lease (through your agreement with IU) one of their buses to use as a shuttle during the hours when it is needed most. This dedicated shuttle would be a better option than the rural transit, and make the students really feel like they are cared for.
I for one am tired of the “stupidity” in the communications from this school. The email you sent was “the straw that broke the camels back” for me. I don’t need pointless communication, I need real communication.
While this may not be your area, I must say the emails that say “choose Ivy-Tech” are pointless when I’m already attending. What am I going to do? Move to another state to attend a community college?
Respectively,
Lee Lawmaster
As I stated, hindsight is 20/20. Some of my comments were a mistake, but I was emotionally charged at the time. I would send an apology for some of my remarks, but as you are about to see it would only make the situation worse. I sent this email to the person who sent it, and I CC’d the Chancellor of the Bloomington Campus. I thought it seemed worthy of skipping any chain of command due to the safety issues involved.
Here is the response from the Chancellor:
Lew: You copied me, so let me respond. Your message was signed “respectively” and I assume you meant “respectfully”. It was neither. If parking is an insurmountable problem for you, I believe a full tuition refund is still available to you through Friday. Contact Jennie Vaughan in students affairs and she will assist you with your withdrawal. This concludes responses from campus staff to you on “stupidity” of “pointless” communication on this matter.
————————–
Please excuse any spelling errors. This message was sent from my PDA.
Whoa! From everything I’ve heard about this guy, he’s the nicest guy you’d know. I didn’t mention having a problem parking.
In the end I said some things I shouldn’t have. I do realize that. Although you would think a person in that position would see through that and see the serious safety issues with their plan. Since Ivy Tech has a monopoly on 2 year degrees in Indiana, I don’t have a choice of seeking another institution for education that is affordable. I know from talking to my fellow students that communications with the school are sub par though. I guess they just don’t want to listen.
I’ve learned where I don’t want my children to go when they reach college age.
One other note: I received a mailing yesterday, I made the Dean’s list for the Summer semester of 2009. While that’s great, I think this overshadows anything I could accomplish at this school.