Turrell Manor has a large, dark mound of snow that has filled up almost the entire parking lot since January, which is eliciting a strong reaction from residents.
While John Signorello, associate vice president of Facilities and Operations and Ann Szipszky, Parking Services manager, did not return repeated requests for comment about the situation, many residents have been angered by the lack of parking available to them.
"The parking situation was fine until the school decided to take all the snow on their main parking lots and dump it in ours," senior Brian Cook said. "Currently we have two lots, one that fits about 7-8 cars and the other that fits around 10. There is a constant fight for parking spots between the residents. The parking situation is abysmal at best. But as long as the resident assistants and residence hall director have their parking spots, everything is okay, right? I also imagine the school didn't even entertain the fact of dumping the snow in the parking lot where all of the clergymen park."
According to Tara Hart, director of Housing and Residence Life, some Turrell residents have been complaining directly to Brian Hughes, the RHD for Turrell as well as to their resident assistants.
"HRL inquired of the Department of Facilities Engineering shortly after the closure of the lot asking for information regarding any timeline for reopening, but to date, we have not been notified," Hart said. "We imagine that until the winter weather is decidedly behind us, such a decision cannot be made. Since parking lots are managed by Parking Services, this may be a discussion going on between that office and Facilities."
Senior Nicholas Lisi said he feels it is "ridiculous how poorly the school plans their snow removal efforts."
"Not only did they take away the largest parking lot for Turrell students, but the snow also severely damaged the lot too," Lisi said. "There is a small crater in the lot now. Even if they were to remove the remaining snow from the lot, it would cost a lot of money to fix the damage as well."
Lisi also said the snow could have been put on the grass behind the Arts & Sciences and Nursing building because "no one walks back there during the winter anyway."
Senior Annie Mullane said Turrell residents are forced to look for other options when finding a parking spot.
"For those who are very lucky, they can park in the lot behind Turrell and in the lot across the street," Mullane said. "Those of us who are not so lucky are being forced to park on-campus and walk back to our building. This is especially annoying when I am returning late at night, or when it's very cold out, or when it's raining."
Mullane added most Turrell residents are forced to park on-campus due to the fact that the two available lots are "very small."
Cook said one of the reasons he chose to live in Turrell was for its private parking lots which are now unavailable due to the situation created by the snow storage.
"In the end, we in Turrell Manor have to just ‘man up' and live around that parking issue problem and go about our lives, because there is no way it is getting rectified during this school year," Cook said.
Kimberly Bolognini can be reached at kimberly.bolognini@student.shu.edu.
