Flashes of Panic

I’m in St. Louis now, so suddenly a parking lot in a pine grove seems a long way away, but I got myself added to a circulation list of discussion, so I have some email.

There was an article in the Wednesday Daily Hampshire Gazette about the controversy, but since the Gazette is now requiring registration I doubt anyone who doesn’t actually get the hard-copy will bother to read it. Nothing substantially new, except for the biology professor (!) who said a lot in a “border area” wasn’t such a bad idea compared to pushing back “further into the woods.”

The good news is, the student opposition to the lot seems to be well-organized and resourceful; rather than just complaining, they have raised an alternative site for the lot (the unused “upper” tennis courts behind the Merrill Science Center and the temporary modular dorms known as “the mods”) and have created enough momentum in student goverment to start a referendum where the students would agree to limit their own parking rights. Currently first-years aren’t allowed to have cars on campus; this would restrict parking “rights” to juniors and seniors, with a sort of draw system for sophomores to keep the numbers in check. So perhaps I was too cynical about the students being able to make sacrifices to preserve their environment.

If they can pull it off, I think it will be pretty impressive: a community of people making individual sacrifices for an indirect collective good. Possibly a more important lesson than any being taught in the classrooms.