Tarleton State University has grown tremendously in the past few years, and enrollment is expected to continue to grow in the coming years. With enrollment increasing, Tarleton faces the issues that many growing schools face: student and faculty parking. Students have complained that they have been late to class because they cannot find parking spots and the number of people receiving parking tickets has increased as well.

This issue is expected to be resolved in the future as Tarleton’s Executive Cabinet, under the Student Government Association, approved the formation of a Parking Committee. The committee members were appointed by Interim Vice President for Student Life Darla Doty, and will begin to address their mission to develop a comprehensive parking plan that supports an accessible campus. The committee consists of seven faculty members and two students and is chaired by Police Chief Matt Welch. Together they will brainstorm and utilize their available resources while remaining respectful to Tarleton as well as the Stephenville community.

“Parking has historically been a problem not only at Tarleton, but on many college campuses,” said Ashlee Estes, a student representative for the committee. “With our growing population we need to look for a long term solution.” 

Estes, along with Timanisha Holbert, make up the student branch of the committee. Their role will be to provide a voice for the student body. They will take feedback and suggestions from their fellow students and relay it to the rest of the committee so that students will be a part of the potential upcoming changes.

Tarleton President Dr. F. Dominic Dottavio will play a role in consulting with the Parking Committee as well.

“The committee itself is charged with coming up with solutions and ideas about how we can provide the most effective parking situation for our students and staff,” Dottavio said. “Where I will be involved will be when they’re looking for final decisions on moving forward with a plan or solution.”

The committee will determine what actions to take moving forward as the spring semester continues.

“They’re doing a lot of work analyzing how many students who park on campus are living on campus, how many commuter students there are, how many staff spots there are, how those are distributed across campus in terms of proximities, and how the shuttle system [or] new property might tie into it,” Dottavio explained. “At some point they’ll probably put together a list of suggestions. It’s at that point that I’ll sit down with the committee and talk about what their recommendations are.”

Dottavio added that some solutions may be put in place faster than others.

“If there are some things they feel like we can do sooner, rather than later, they’ll bring those ideas to me so we can start doing some implementation now,” Dottavio said. “We need to make sure that, coming into the fall especially, we have as good a solution as we can for students.”

The committee will determine whether to move to reserved spaces or gated lots, as well as consider differential parking fee structures, construction impact, and the need for more permanent and temporary lots on or around campus. The shuttle system will also be reviewed to see if improvements can be made to it. Parking is a problem on the Tarleton campus and with implementation of this committee, the problem looks to soon be resolved. The committee will begin to address the immediate parking concerns as well as the long-term needs of Tarleton students, faculty, staff and visitors this semester.