New Health Science and Human Service facility, new turf fields, new dorm. That’s all great, but where are we going to park?

Over the holiday break, it was an assumption that our school ditched the original master plan, which took 18 months to perfect, when it reality the original plan was never approved by the board. The original plan called for the new dorm being built, an expansion to the Mass Communication department, a parking garage, a football stadium and more athletic fields.

While there are a lot of issues arising from this, there are also some benefits to the potential of this new plan. The new Health Science and Human Service facility could offer more educational opportunities for students who want to major in nursing, health administration and social work – rapidly growing fields of interest. The access that this facility provides for undergraduate and graduate students in these fields may improve upon the programs currently offered.

Despite all the progress slated for campus, a major concern for students is still parking. This semester, we have seven more parking spots than we ever had at MSU, even though they are not outside “desirable” buildings.

The new plan for the Health Science and Human Service facility is that it will be placed over the parking lot west of McCoy, taking away 72 parking spots. Despite a growing resident student population, there’s a significant commuter student base that can’t endure another hit to parking.

We need to ensure that there will be more parking in the future so that even if current students can’t use it, students after us won’t have to face the parking problems that we have faced. While improving campus to appeal to potential students outside of Wichita Falls, we can’t turn our backs on the local population already here.