The Campus Conservative

  Sign to event parking at The University of Texas at Tyler. (Source: James Hescock)  Over Christmas Break, I decided to look into the parking issue on-campus, starting with enforcement. I obtained the record of all parking citations for fall 2023 by a public information act request. Here is what I found. At UT-Tyler, parking enforcement issued 380 parking citations over the fall 2023 semester. It issued 152 citations for Parking Without A Valid Permit, 59 for Improper Space/Over Line and 48 for Parking In Area Not Designated (meaning, residential students parking on-campus). Overall, these were the top three violations and they made up 40%, 15% and 13% of all violations respectively. The parking department also received approximately 30 appeals from students, faculty and staff, according to a separate information request. Yet, on Nov. 14, Parking Appeals Committee Chair Ronald Carnes III, told student government that his committee receives roughly 30 to ...

  ( Photo : ''Court Gavel - Judge's Gavel - Courtroom'' by wp paarz via Flickr ) The following is a primer to internal university governance. When you're a student, it is easy when you want to do something for yourself. Want to drop a class or change your majo r ? That's no problem. Yet, the moment you want to do something for the student community, say end a student fee or save the mascot from extinction, then you enter the realm of campus politics. Reforming campus policy requires you engage with the structure of university governance and that you participate in a democratic process. For this, you need to understand the university’s governance structure and how the powers that be set university policy. To the average student, all of this can be quite foreign. So to help students understand university governance, here is a primer to university governance. Everyone can have an introductory understanding of university governance if they understand th...