ETSU students unexpectedly discovered their cars were to be towed before the football game two Fridays ago. They received less than seven hours’ notice via a single email that cars parked in certain lots close to the field were to be towed to make way for season ticket holders.
Although I don’t know if or how many cars were towed that Friday, it was at the very least an inconvenient hassle for several people to move their cars in time. For anyone who may have gotten towed, it was a much bigger deal. It’s a massive inconvenience to say the least and messes up one’s entire day.
After Raina Wiseman (the executive editor of this paper) parked that Friday in one of the parking lots reserved for season ticket holders, she left on a club trip, only to receive the university’s warning email forty minutes later that cars parked in her lot would be towed starting at 5 p.m. She made a fruitless call to Parking Services, who informed her the towing was done by ETSU Athletics. Then she had to go through the hassle of evading the towing by emailing Parking Services, Athletics and the Media and Communication Department chair the group’s cars’ makes, models and tag numbers.
“It was just a headache that caused undue stress,” Wiseman told me. “I don’t have 400+ dollars to be towed right now, especially by ETSU, when they didn’t give due warning.”
If cars in those spaces need to be towed, administration should do a better job making that known. It is simply unfair for people to hold each other responsible for something over which they may not have control, as in Wiseman’s example and many other scenarios, in which seven hours may not have been enough notice. This relates to Henry Fayol’s management principle of responsibility and authority – that someone in a management position should not be held responsible for something he or she doesn’t have authority over. In certain circumstances, we do not have the authority (or power) in only seven hours to move our vehicle and thus shouldn’t be held responsible for it.
Although it might be easy to assume holding students responsible with such a late warning was a money-making scheme, I’m going to employ the judgment of charity and assume the best of the administration. It’s possible that correspondence between administration and athletics took longer than expected, so that towing could not be confirmed until that time or any other variety of reasons. We should not assume it was a manipulative maneuver because we do not know that.
Not only would better communication have prevented the undue responsibility, but it would have eased the load on students like Wiseman, who showed she technically did have the ability to circumvent towing, but at the expense of unneeded stress. How many students like her went out of their way to ensure their cars weren’t towed?
The season ticket holders themselves, too, may benefit from more effective communication, as the students would have sufficient time to move their cars and leave the spaces for them. It might be easier for Athletics not to have to worry about towing everyone’s car.
Instead of issuing the only towing notice the day-of, in the future it would be helpful to have earlier notices, such as an email a week in advance, with one or two reminders during the week, including the day before game day and on game day. As annoying as it may be to receive an unnecessary email, the few seconds it takes to delete it are nothing compared to the mess of trying to reclaim your car once it’s been towed.
Students without season tickets who go to the game could be notified upon purchase of the game ticket. A video like in President Brian Noland’s former “Notepads in 90” series might be another good avenue. Notices could be posted on the walls of class buildings.
I don’t think all these methods are necessary, but they are ways students might appreciate being notified of the importance of moving their cars so they don’t get towed. What is certain is that students should be given more notice in the future, which ultimately is in the best interest of Administration and students alike.
