Shippensburg University’s Class of 2025 graduates in just 11 days — an accomplishment to be proud of for sure — what about everyone else? They will be returning in the fall to a campus that continues to be plagued by issues of convenience, or worse.

Some of the changes needed to improve the university experience are minor, but others address a shift in the balance between the administrator-student relationship.

We have chosen to address the former first, and if you are one of the many students to have woken up and found your car aggressively booted, it will be an all-too-familiar complaint — parking. 

It is well past the time to fix the parking issue on this campus. The aggressive ticket-and-boot campaign at the university is more punishing than you will find at almost any other municipality or institution. When it is easier to park at Citizens Bank Park than it is for a class at Rowland Hall, you do not have a functioning system.

Add to this, the fact that if you get a ticket for parking anywhere within a mile of your class, you will be locked out of university services like registering for classes, and you get the sense that the university is all too willing to punish its customers for using their services. And customers are what we are, and the university would do well to remember that.

The dining hall is another popular complaint. There have been some improvements to the dining experience on campus this year, such as Tuesday’s build-your-own pasta dish, but it would be nice to see more week-to-week variety with meal options.

There have also been one-day pop-up events in the Ceddia Union Building, such as loaded mac and cheese bowls and fish and chips, but those were announced on such short notice that many remained unaware. If these were planned and announced beforehand, it would add a good change for campus residents.

A sense of community is also sorely lacking. Student-led organizations help, but whether it be the high number of commuter students or some other issue, the administration could do more to improve campus life.

Returning to the topic of communication, we should address the lack of a provost in the room. The provost’s sudden departure after less than a year of service being completely announced is incompetent. How many students are even aware that this event occurred? 

Harkening back to the point that students are customers, we are also investors. We invest in Shippensburg University for its institutional credibility, for that is what a degree says to the world in this increasingly AI-dominated world. 

In a time when some universities have come under attack by the federal government, vacancies in top positions send a message of an uncertain future. Students are stakeholders. If they are to make one of the most expensive purchases in their lives, they deserve to know what is happening in the upper echelons of this university. 

It is improper to treat students as children undeserving of this information. Students were mature enough to borrow thousands of dollars to learn and use Shippensburg’s credibility. The university should recognize this and make it a habit to be more honest and open with students. 

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