Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the campus news section of the Marist Circle.
For many Marist students, a parking dilemma has presented itself each winter when the men’s and women’s basketball teams host home games.
The parking lot in front of McCann Arena and Sheahan Hall has, until now, typically shut down to inbound traffic hours before tipoff and for the duration of each game. With that lot serving as a vital parking location for hundreds of faculty members, commuter students and residents alike, parking headaches have been a regular occurrence on gamedays.
Enter men’s lacrosse senior attack Alex DiVincentis. After becoming frustrated with how the parking rules interrupted his ability to park near his team’s practices at Tenney Stadium, Divncentis decided to take matters into his own hands.
“During basketball games with the McCann parking lot closed off, we’ve got to park across campus and then walk,” said DiVincentis. “So there’s all these hoops we have to jump through to get to practice and I’m like, ‘there’s gotta be a better way to get around this’.”
DiVincentis concocted an idea: with reserved spaces frequently remaining unused in the McCann lot throughout the duration of many basketball games, the lots should reopen to students 15 minutes after tipoff. That way, open parking spaces would not go to waste and could, in turn, alleviate some of the bottlenecking occurring across campus. Simultaneously, Marist fans would still have more than enough time to park and make it to the game in time.
“The main idea here is that if we can’t create more parking through the institution of new parking lots, we have to make the parking that we already have more available,” said DiVincentis.
DiVincentis did not initially intend to present his idea to higher-ups but rather wanted to use it for a class assignment.
“I actually made this for a homework assignment for one of my public presentation classes and it was a persuasive speech,” said DiVincentis. “I was trying to figure out what topic I wanted to do and I was like, well, I’m pissed off about the parking scenario.”
Lo and behold, DiVincentis’ professor, Robin Diller Torres, just so happened to be the faculty advisor for the Student Government Association (SGA). Before long, DiVincentis was slated to appear before the SGA on the merits of his idea, with Diller Torres reaching out and inviting the College’s Director of Safety and Security, John Blaisdell, to attend the meeting.
DiVincentis attended the weekly SGA meeting on Wednesday, March 27, and presented a slide deck to student leaders and Blaisdell to convince them to adopt his idea. Blaisdell was immediately on board, and his idea passed unanimously.
“The student came up with a good idea and I will suggest it be implemented. It should not interfere with basketball parking, and will provide greater availability to students,” Blaisdell wrote in an email to the Marist Circle.
With Blaisdell retiring at the end of the year, he will pass the idea along to his successor with his full endorsement, but the new director of safety and security will have the final say on whether DiVincents’ proposal is enacted next season. With DiVincentis also set to graduate this spring, neither he nor Blaisdell will be around to see the idea come to fruition. Still, Divincentis believes in the importance of making a positive impact on future Marist students.
“Obviously, I’m not gonna benefit from the change because I’m a graduating senior, but it’s nice to create something that facilitates some real change that people can benefit from in the future,” said DiVincentis.
Edited by Ben Leeds and Ava Battinelli
Photo from Luke Sassa
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