Director of Security, Chris Frerichs is overseeing parking operations on campus. With an abundance of parking tickets each year, Frerichs advises why tickets are being given out, where, and how to prevent getting a ticket.

“We do roughly 2-3,000 tickets a year,” said Frerichs. “That is also with visitors forgetting the name tags and other things. So those are not all tickets filled out to students.”

Frerichs noted that security knows how many parking spots are available for the cars registered and that there is enough room for everyone, even though some of these spaces are not in desirable locations.

“This tends to be the first years because they are landlocked. Kresge [Hall] has no parking, and Barker [Hall] only has 38-40 spaces. However, you can park outside your door when you are a sophomore, junior, and senior,” said Frerichs.

The main areas security tends to have to ticket are in the Wallace and Hillman parking lots. This is due to students driving to class and parking there. Security also finds students with a silver pass in a yellow parking lot.

Security has made a few changes with the spread-out parking for silver passes. They made more rows behind the Colonial and Washington apartments for a silver parking pass to accommodate the construction at the baseball field.

There are available brochures that point to where available parking is and where the different passes are allowed to park. 

Depending on where you park, there will be different fines. “Students parking in faculty lots will be on the higher end for a ticket, and if you have a registered vehicle, that will be a lower amount for a ticket than a student who did not register,” Frerichs said.

Once you get a ticket, you can appeal to have it cleared. Students who serve on the parking committee board are the ones who review each appeal request. Security is not involved after the ticket is given.

You would first begin the process by talking to Frerichs, 

“You would bring the ticket to me, and we would talk about it. Then I would say you can go to SC connect, where you registered your vehicle, and click the appeal link. Here you fill out the information needed and your reasoning.”  

However, the appeal window is only 10 days so the sooner the better.

“It is the worst thing we do in the security department. It is a negative. However, there are many positives to overlooking the parking. Recently we sent an email telling a student that their tailgate was down, exposing a bunch of tools that could be stolen. They had no idea and thanked us. We also report when lights are left on, help with jump starts, and have connections to repair shops in the area. We recognize that we make mistakes too. So, it is a positive if you come to talk to us about a mistake or misunderstanding, and we will take the parking ticket right off.” Frerichs said.