By LAUREN BARTLETT

Living Editor

Every day a Piedmont College student wakes up, gets ready for class, walks outside and is faced with a dilemma: do they walk to class and risk being late or drive to class and risk getting a parking ticket? 

Receiving a parking ticket can be a downer on anyone’s day, especially since the tickets aren’t always given out consecutively. 

Kelly O’Shields, a sophomore psychology major, said that she has never received a ticket until last semester. 

“I was parked behind Getman-Babcock (GB), and I was surprised because I had parked there before and hadn’t gotten any type of ticket,” said O’Shields.  

Unfortunately, she was not able to have her ticket appealed and had to pay the fine. She said she learned her lesson in following the rules about parking posted around campus. 

A lot of students don’t know that if a student receives more then three parking violations in one semester, they can lose their campus parking privileges. Also, if a student does have a parking ticket and they just ignore it, the school can put a hold put on your accounts and keep students from picking up their paychecks.

 Libby Scoggins, a junior forensics major, received a ticket and was not able to get it appealed. 

When asked her thoughts that Piedmont can hold her paychecks if she doesn’t pay the fine, she said, “It is counteractive if they hold students’ paychecks. How else are they supposed to pay the fine? They shouldn’t be able to hold our personal checks. The last time I checked, this was America.”

The Navigator spoke with Campus Police Chief Dick Martin and asked him what the procedure they follow when writing a ticket. Martin said, “We always check the parking lots and look for any violations.” 

Martin said that they have issued over 300 tickets this semester, but some of them get appealed or they can work something out with the students. 

Jessie Owensby is a senior mass communications student. Two weeks ago, she received her first ticket on campus. It was 3:30 p.m. on Friday afternoon, and she was parked between GB and Stewart. 

“I was coming from the Swanson Center and had my four-year-old daughter with me. I was paying a bill and didn’t want to drag my daughter across campus just to do something that would take five minutes,” said Owensby. 

This is the last semester that Martin will be Piedmont’s Chief of Police. When asked if there were going to be any changes when he is gone, he said, “The school itself is going through a lot of changes. Next year, there will be new dining hall and village open, but any major changes will not be made by my staff but by the administration.”