GROSSMONT COLLEGE – At the start of each semester, students face impacted classes, scheduling conflicts and other woes. At the forefront of these issues is the first one students face upon arriving on campus. The parking issue.

However, by this time of the semester, the parking situation has seemed to ease. What happened?

“Life happens,” responds Tim Flood, vice president of administrative services and director of campus facilities operations and maintenance. In a taped interview, he noted that some students drop courses, or withdraw from school to take jobs, as a semester progresses. As they do so, parking spots all over the campus are freed up.

However, he said, parking troubles will occur again during the semester when a new concurrent 8-week session gets underway. New students will stay on campus all day, trying to crash courses for which they could not pre-enroll. Many also will wait in lines trying to obtain financial aid. Eventually, their paperwork will be completed and their schedules will be settled, no longer necessitating them to stay on campus as long. As a result, parking spots will turn over more often.

The good news for all students, Flood said, is that the area of the campus now housing a modular village for administrators and staff will once again be turned into a parking lot “somewhere late in the spring semester” after the new administration building and student center are completed.

To hear excerpts of the interview on parking with Tim Flood, please click: Flood on Parking.

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Jeiter is a student in Media Comm 132. He may be contacted at [email protected]