By Alycia Smith

I’ve recently heard a rumor – or what I hope to any attentive deity is a rumor – that those in the upper range of the UofL decision-making hierarchy are considering tearing up the parking lot on Fourth Street that so many of us commuters have come to depend on, and building – get this – another dorm.

While I’m all for freshman housing, for who in their right mind would actually claim to be against it, I have a bit of a problem with this. And just as I do with all things I have a problem with, I wrote an article about it.

Over half of this school’s student attendance comes from off campus, and for those of us who don’t live in Old Louisville, we drive every day. Now I’ve heard from a fairly reliable source, although he has been known to scrape his information off the men’s stalls in the Humanities building, that there are a few parking spaces in the Fourth Street lot at six in the morning, but I’ve never seen one myself. And also that Allison is easy, and can be called for a good time.

So most of us going to school here already have to go through a hell of a lot to get here in the morning, and now, if the rumor is true, they’d like to tear down the only place we can sometimes maybe if we conjure up some pagan god by sacrificing a virgin, get a parking space.

They’ve already forced us off campus in the first place! There aren’t enough dorms even for the incoming freshman class, so some of them won’t get dorm accommodations, let alone any other classes, trying to get easy housing close to school. They’ve already kicked us out for being “suicidal” or reclusive or spending too much time studying. They’ve already pushed us into apartments, for which we had to purchase furniture and kitchen appliances that will no longer fit in dorm rooms.

What am I supposed to do with my couch, donate it back to the thrift store I bought it from?

We can’t come back to the dorms, and yet UofL, if they go through with this, would give more housing to incoming freshman in order to attract more students, and then push THEM into apartments and give them nowhere to park.

I’m personally calling to all SGA candidates and to those who will actually get the jobs: look into this, okay? See if they can’t give us another parking garage instead.

Some students have recently posed an interesting question my way, but then, since I am writing in a public forum, it’s not just posed at me, it’s posed at all of us.

Why don’t we, those who find flaws in this school’s administration, just get the hell out? Why don’t we, those who are pissed off that we’ll soon have even less of a chance to park without getting ticketed around UofL’s campus, just go to another school with adequate parking? Why don’t we, those who disagree with the ways this school is run, just take our full-tuition scholarships and KEES money and go somewhere else?

Well, I guess we’re weird that way. Some of us, perhaps descendants of draft-dodgers and flower children, perhaps future political leaders and news reporters, perhaps presently drifting between generations and phases of consciousness, decide to stay. Some of us, however disillusioned and self-righteous we may seem, want to stick it out and try to change the way things work. Some of us, and we’re probably the kids in your class who show up late, hide in the back, and try some smart-ass or just smart retort and it comes out all wrong, decided not to get the hell out, but to stay the hell here and see if we could do something about it.

I have no delusions about my position, though. I realize that by writing angry articles claiming this is wrong and that is wrong, I most likely won’t make any difference in anything.

But I’m going to do it anyway.

Alycia Smith is a junior English major and columnsit for

The Cardinal, Contact:

alycia_smith@louisvillecardinal.com.