Antioch Parking Limitations
Linked to Environmental Harm
“ Antioch University Santa Barbara prides itself on being environmentally conscious and fostering an atmosphere of openness and respect. Each of us plays an important role in caring for our campus and community. We hope that the information shared will help make our campus -home greener, and keep it a welcoming, comfortable, accessible place for all members of our AUSB community to share.” – Campus Stewardship
Antioch University relocated in downtown Santa Barbara, the heart of the busy city, has already taken steps to assure it remains a “green” campus using only environmentally friendly materials in the design of it’s campus.Actively reducing, reusing, and recycling combined with it’s innovative online learning forum, prevents the wasting of resources. Ultimately the schools efforts have earned the recognition as one of Santa Barbara’s most green campus exceeding the standards established by the State of California for green buildings.
Recently taking the online course for Sustainable Business Practices with Professor Jacqueline Oliveira better known as “ JO” we were encouraged to search the community for acts of environmental sustainability. More specifically to analyzed those businesses who are environmentally conscious, taking caution to remain profitable without forfeiting being resourceful. When asked to identify Antioch’s need for environmental improvement’s. My group and I found difficult finding it’s shortcomings by “The energy saving, waste reducing, material reusing” campus. However, after further study it did not take long to discover an environmental issue caused by the Green Campu. Here is what we learned:
Antioch Student Parking Changes for Environmental Protection Proposal
Student Authors:Donald Burdick, Courtney Salviolo
, Miranda Rich, Maria Flores, Daniel Vasquez
The Problem
“ Antioch does not provide designated parking for it’s students. Unlike many other schools Antioch students are limited on parking options. Street parking requires that you move your car every hour to avoiding expensive parking tickets while attending the class. The parking garage across the street also has a time limit up to 75 minutes but then charges $1.50 per hour once you exceed the time limit, even by a minute. Each class at Antioch is about two hours and fifty minutes long. They also have the ability to give you multiple tickets within one day. The cost of a ticket starts at $48.00, which is especially outrageous for college students. The moving of vehicles not only cuts into our valuable class time and creates distraction…”
The Issue
“This may address the needs of the students by providing time to move cars and eliminate unwanted expenses, but not the environment needs by reducing constant turning on/off of vehicles increases the amount of emissions in the air because of unnecessary car use while on school campus. How is the school addressing this issue? According to the Environmental Protection Agency using personal vehicles in 2012 there was an estimated 868 million cars and trucks on the road, each averaging the 12,000 driven miles that year. Did you know that each vehicle releases carbon dioxide emissions each time it is driven. Meaning that the 260 billion gallons of fuel used that year were released into the atmosphere. Therefore every time an Antioch student moves their car they are contributing to the harmful impact on our environmental and community health.”
Take Action
The students of Antioch need to build a coalition that includes other downtown students from The Brooks Institute and SBBC. This coalition of students would develop a plan with the approval of the administrations of all three universities. The plan would allow students of downtown schools to park for a rate of $0.50 per hour with a student validation. The administration of each school would agree to regulate the validation process to assure that the system was only utilized by the registered students. To ensure the city of Santa Barbara that the downtown students are sincerely presenting this plan to ease the financial burden associated with their education, this program would be contingent on the MTD granting all three schools to participate in the student ID/bus pass program that UCSB, SBCC, and The Brooks Institute already participate in.
The Student Responsibility
Parking in downtown is a revenue stream for the city of Santa Barbara. Students need to be mindful of the possibility that the city will not be able to afford to subsidize their parking. The parking situation at AUSB can cause disruptions to a student’s education through financial hardship and classroom interruptions. They will need to develop contingency plans with the university administration in order to find ways to acquire funds that the city may require. Collaborating with students and faculty, the school should be willing to find ways to assist them if needed, for the benefit of the educational experience of their students. Until changes can be implemented students should reduce their personal contribution by reducing their use of personal vehicles.
The University’s Responsibility
“Parking is a big issue for most students at Antioch University. The fact that students have to be constantly jumping through hoops to moving their cars and avoid getting parking tickets, causes the loss of valuable class time and increases the amount of Co2 and greenhouse emissions release into the atmosphere on a daily basis. A plan needs to be developed and implemented in order to mitigate the harmful effects on the environment and to improve the quality of class time for the students. AUSB is well-known for implementing and promoting a sustainable approach as part of a social justice value, which is embedded in its Praxis for Social Justice core purpose. The coalition of students and the strategic plan in collaboration with the university administration suggested above, has a great potential to not only mediate the parking issue that students currently have, but to also contribute to Antioch University’s sustainability and environmental preservation efforts and advocacy.”
In conclusion, the environmental preservation of Santa Barbara is an important part of Antioch’s social-justice culture. It strives to develop a community and educational home for it’s students that is both rich in knowledge and sustainability. In hopes that our proposal will encourage student and faculty to begin taking personal responsibility for their own environmental contributions. We can begin reducing the environmental harm caused by personal actions. By creating awareness we can begin to create change. `As a student I will attest that of the lesson’s learned at Antioch, the most invaluable to me has been realizing that the actions we take and the choices we make throughout our educational, professional and personal lives can affect the world.
