Tag Archives: College

Winona State parking causes frustrations for some

Winona State University has seen a limit on the amount of parking permits given to students along with limited space to park which for some leads to frustration. 

Winona State Parking Services have a cap on the number of parking permits they sell for residential and commuter parking lots. 

For residential lots, with silver, green, tan and maroon parking permits, the cap is the same as the number of spots the university has in those lots. 

All Winona State parking permits have to be hung on the rearview mirror of vehicles at all times while in a Winona State parking lot. Failure to have the permit hanging could result in a parking violation.

For the silver, green and maroon lots, the annual price of a parking permit is $155. The tan lot parking permits are $85 because there are conferences often at the Tau Center which is where the tan parking lot is. 

For commuter lots, the gold and purple parking permits, the cap is a little more than the number of spaces in those lots. 

Alisha Syrmopoulos, Winona State’s Parking Services office manager said they do that because people do not stay in the lot for long periods of time. 

Gold parking permits are $225 per calendar year. Purple parking permits are $105 per academic year. 

Sustainability parking permits are available for students who live in the sustainability house for $155 and Circle or Grey parking permits are offered for motorcycles and mopeds for $35. 

Winona State Parking Services also offers a blue parking permit for those with a state-issued handicap permit for $105. 

Faculty, staff and students have the ability to purchase handicap parking spaces provided they have a state issued handicap permit. The Winona State handicap permits are $105 per academic year.

Winona State meets ADA regulations when it comes to handicap spaces but Syrmopoulos said she receives complaints that the amount of spots is not enough. 

Syrmopoulos said she gets complaints about not having enough handicap spaces. 

With a handicap parking permit, the permit holder is able to park in any open spot on campus. Syrmopoulos said even if someone cannot find a handicap spot Parking Services stills wants to get them as close as possible. 

Syrmopoulos said they do the best with what they have. 

“We are kind of landlocked. You kind of got to work with what you have and use the space,” Syrmopoulos said. 

This is why not everyone who applies for a parking permit will get one. 

Syrmopoulos said there is a stack of applications from faculty, staff and students who want a parking permit for this school year.  

The process Parking Services use to decide who gets a parking permit is first-come-first-served. 

Syrmopoulos said there have been professors who go into the Parking Services Office and tell the student workers they should have priority to get a parking permit. 

“I have had faculty sit here and yell at my students and tell my students that they should have priority to these parking permits because if it wasn’t for them the university wouldn’t even be running,” Syrmopoulos said. 

She said her response to these professors has been that if there were no students there would be no need for faculty. 

“It’s a co-op effort,” Syrmopoulos said. 

First-year Winona State student, Kalli O’Brien said she believes the process of getting a parking permit is fair. 

She does not agree with the cap on residential parking. 

“I live in Sheehan and I’d say I have parked in that parking lot in front of Sheehan less than 10 times for sure,” O’Brien said. “It is so frustrating because I do morning shifts and walking far away in the morning when it’s freezing out sucks.” 

At the beginning of the semester, O’Brien was almost going to give up her parking permit because she did not believe it was worth the money. 

After talking to her parents O’Brien decided to keep the parking permit because she knew in the winter she would be happy to have it. 

Another aspect of the parking permit that frustrates O’Brien is when students in residential parking spots have a permit but never move their car. 

“I live on one of the top floors and my roommate and I look down and we can see the cars that have been there for weeks,” O’Brien said. “Why do you even have a car if you’re not using it?” 

O’Brien said she believes students who use their cars on a regular basis should be the ones with the parking spot right outside the building. 

O’Brien said she would not recommend getting a parking permit to anyone because it is not worth the amount of money. 

“Alternate side parking it’s kind of a hassle but it’s more of a hassle doing [a parking permit] and wasting your money,” O’Brien said.

Student Senate comments on election data and process

Student Senate Elections are a tradition on most campuses.

The Spring 2019 election for the Winona State University Student Senate was no different.

Ben Ellgen, newly elected Student Senate president said the Senate considers 10 percent of the student body voting to be a success, which is about 800 students out of about 8,000 students.

According to the Spring 2019 election data 904 Winona State students voted.

Of those who voted in the 2019 election a total of 796 students voted for the treasurer tickets and 804 voted for the president and vice president tickets.

The graph above illustrates the total number of voters over the past four elections. The two Spring elections are when the executive board and the constitution revisions are voted on.

Ellgen commented on the voter turnout for the Spring 2019 election.

“I frankly was a little disappointed. I love Senate and I know the good work it can do,” Ellgen said. “I would have liked to see more people participate. Especially in a contested election.”

In the Spring 2018, election the candidates for the executive positions ran unopposed.

For treasurer in Spring 2018, 916 people voted for the position, 120 more people than the most recent election.

The president and vice president ticket in the Spring of 2018 had 923 people who voted, 119 more people than the most recent election.

This graph illustrates the number of total votes versus the number of votes for each executive position during the executive election years. In both of those elections the total number of votes is more than the votes for the executive positions.

The lowest voter turnout was for the Fall of 2018. 466 Winona State Students voted in the election.

The elections are not only used to elect student leaders but also to have the student body vote for changes to the constitution.

Christina Melecio, current Student Senate president said in order to approve any constitution changes Senate, needs 10 percent of the student body to vote and the majority to approve it.

The Spring of 2018 vote was close to not passing with 811 votes.

Melecio said there are two rules for candidates that are talked about more because they are the rules most often broken.

“The first one would be no campaigning within 25 feet of the Senate office,” Melecio said. “Then there is no spending more than $250 per ticket.”

For example, the president and vice president run as a ticket, meaning they run together. They have $250 to spend together.

The $250 is for posters, buttons, stickers or anything else the person running feels they need for their campaign.

Nicole Ruhland and Ben Ellgen described their experience with the process when they ran for president against each other in the Spring 2019 election.

Ellgen said the process of the election was long but rewarding.

“It was a lot of time, lot of late nights, a lot of going out to clubs, a lot of interactions,” Ellgen said. “It is definitely an intensive process. But, at the same time, it’s really rewarding.”

Ellgen said it was a humbling process.

“Honestly, it is not fun that week or two. But, again, it is so rewarding to get out into the Winona Community and it is such humbling process,” Ellgen said.

Ruhland said the process was interesting and she learned a lot about herself.

Ruhland has never campaigned like this before. She said she was not used to talking about herself and what she wanted to do.

She did learn she can public speak and said she appreciated meeting so many people.

“I got to meet a lot of people and that was exciting,” Ruhland said. “It also made me realize that I can do public speaking. It’s scary but it is possible.”

For more information on the Winona State Student Senate:

https://www.winona.edu/studentsenate/Media/WSUSA-Constitution.pdf

https://www.winona.edu/studentsenate/Media/Bylaws.pdf

https://www.winona.edu/studentsenate/default.asp

Sexual assaults on campus down or up?

By: Nicole Girgen and Madelyn Swenson

Editor’s note: The content of this article may be triggering if you have been or are sensitive to sexual assaults.  

According to Winona State University’s Annual Safety Report, cases of sexual assault reported on campus are down from six in 2016 to three in 2017. Chris Cichosz, Winona State’s director of security, Lori Mikl WSU’s Title IX coordinator, students apart of the Gender Based Violence (GBV) organization and the annual campus climate survey say it doesn’t mean the assaults are down.

Mikl said just because reports are down on campus does not mean that sexual assaults are not happening as often. Cichosz and GBV students agreed.

“I don’t think the prevalence of sexual assault is down at all,” Mikl said. “I just think that students are right now a little more leery of coming forward.”

Mikl said the decrease in reports could be because of a few factors.

Mikl said one factor is how reporting assault is portrayed in the news media. She said there is backlash for victim/survivors who are coming forward.

GBV students, Molly Sarbacker, Jacob Hansen, Tom Cameron and Emma Severson said they agree with this statement.

Increasing reporting: a video message

Mikl and GBV students also said some circumstances may contribute. Including: fear of coming forward, outing the aggressor and the stigma behind sexual assaults.

Molly Sarbacker, junior student a part of GBV, has been through the process of reporting through the university.

When Sarbacker went to the Title IX office, she had GBV coordinator Heather Gerdes go with her, a service that the organization provides to anyone.

Sarbacker said the process was traumatizing.

“I think that it’s a traumatizing experience to go through reporting and to share your story over and over and over again,” Sarbacker said.

According to Mikl, all decision makers and those on the panels that hear the case are trained in how to do so.

The reporting process itself is different for everyone.

A victim/survivor can report to security, a resident assistant (RA), a trusted friend, the police or others.

According to both Cichosz and Mikl, the way most victim/survivors report is through an RA or security.

Cichosz said there is always room for improvement in the process and he is open to feedback from victim/survivors who have gone through security.

“There is always room for improvement,” Cichosz said. “I think letting victims know what their options are, I think we can always do better at getting that information out there.”

Jacob Hansen, a sophomore student a part of GBV, said there is a universal “red zone” where most assaults occur.

The red zone starts in September and goes through Thanksgiving. There is an increase in reports, for many reasons.

How to help intervene: a video message

Hansen said some of the reasons are the first football game, homecoming, welcome week and the warm weather leading to more parties.

The U.S. Department of Education may be making changes to the Title IX rules for campuses.

These would include more rights for those who are accused of committing a sexual assault.

Tom Cameron, a sophomore student a part of GBV, said he has high hopes for the future.

“We can’t really say any specifics so far just because this information is still in the works and we are still figuring out how we can go about this,” Cameron said. “But the future is looking good. We can say that for sure. We’re definitely brainstorming everything we can and all the options for right now.”

From Active Duty to Active Student

Army Veteran Discusses Life as a College Student

In order to better understand what life is like for a veteran in a college setting, Army veteran and Winona State student Sara Manning discussed how she feels in an environment where she is surrounded by younger, and often non-military-affiliated, peers.

Manning offered her take to help other students understand the difficulty veterans face in putting themselves through college.

Off in the distance from where Manning sat during an interview, a car backfired. Her eyes darted to its place of origin and she disappeared into thought. She was overseas again.

“Muscle memory,” Manning said, pressing her fingers to her neck to check her pulse.

According to Britani Woodworth from Winona State’s Veterans Affairs office, around 200 members of the armed forces enroll at the school following deployment. For many of them, this is a bookend to life-changing circumstances, and sometimes their readjustment to private citizenship is more difficult than they originally imagined.

“I would say it changed me for the worst,” Manning, 33, said, speaking about her deployment in Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. “I’m still in transition. I’m not the person I once was. My interpersonal skills have narrowed and I don’t really trust groups of people.”

Manning’s deployment lasted 16 months, which saw her working as military police, traveling to U.S.-occupied countries and detaining soldiers deemed no longer fit to serve.

“I’ve always been comfortable with discipline,” Manning said.

Manning (second from the right) and her unit overseas [Photo supplied by Sara Manning]
Whether it is removing soldiers from active duty or doing school work, discipline is credited as one of her inspirations to go to college.

On if she is comfortable being in an environment where she is more world-weary than the young populace of a college campus, Manning said, “Deployment changed my mentality, and I think that affected my integration into the college community. My personal bubble is pretty small and it takes me awhile to trust people.”

According to Woodworth, who is also a student along with being a staff member in the Veterans Affairs office, it is common for veterans to have trouble integrating into a college community following deployment.

“There’s a hard adjustment for people in the military coming back from a deployment, (and) back into civilian life,” Woodworth said. “The normalcy of everything is really hard for some people.”

Manning also discussed how being a veteran influences her role as a college student.

“It is very… I don’t know if surreal describes it,” Manning said. “I definitely do not identify with anybody there, even the professors. So it’s very intimidating in a way that I just don’t know how to function …”

Along with the aforementioned difficulties, Manning referenced her son as an added obstacle in terms of her role as as a student.

“I also have a child,” Manning continued, “so that makes it even harder to (engage) people younger than me, because they assume that because I’m in a class with them, I’m able to freely able to use my time … and that’s just not something I can do.”

Similar to her earlier comments, Manning again discussed discipline and how it appears to be more instrumental to her than her classmates.

“The biggest challenge is having other people understand discipline,” Manning said. “Other students seem nonchalant with what they’re doing, and it’s kind of on a back-burner, whereas I’ve been trained that if (something) is going to get done and done right, it’s going to take a lot of time, a lot of effort and less procrastination.”

Manning elaborated her thoughts on procrastination and how it negatively impacts work that needs to be done.

“The more you procrastinate, the less chance you have to get it done,” Manning said. “Which should be obvious, but not to a lot of people I’ve seen so far at universities.”

Woodworth, too, discussed the difference in discipline she notices between veterans and non-military-affiliated students.

“When I got back from my basic and AIT (Advanced Individual Training) training … and started into school, I noticed … people are on their phones, distracted,” Woodworth said. “ (They) would (also) start packing up their stuff before the teacher was done talking. Like you can’t wait for them to finish their words?”

Perhaps because of her level of discipline, Manning remarked she sometimes feels out of place in an educational setting.

“There’s times where I definitely feel out of place,” Manning said. “I resonate more with the teachers than I do with the students, so that might tell you something.”

Woodworth said many veterans find difficulty in finding a sense of purpose in civilian—and by extension, college—life.

“When you’re in a deployment setting for several months, you always have a purpose,” Woodworth said. “You always have strict things to do and then when you get back into civilian life, it’s more laid back, especially going to college.”

Woodworth suggested feelings of alienation may be created by the individual and not their environment.

“I feel like maybe we alienate ourselves and we tend to feel like we’re more different than we actually are,” Woodworth said. “Coming from a deployment aspect, there probably is some that exists, because you see things you know other people aren’t going to see unless they’re over there … But when it comes down to it, we’re not that different.”

Despite being 33, Manning said she doesn’t always feel different than her mostly younger peers, but she does notice she comes from a different generation.

“I don’t feel any older than … a lot of students, but there are some aspects where I feel older,” Manning said. “A lot of these students feel things need to be handed to them, whereas when I grew up things needed to be earned.”

Manning drew from her upbringing as the root of her discipline and how it continues to reflect the way she conducts her work.

“‘Earn your keep’ was a big phrase or saying when I grew up, “ Manning said. “A lot of attitudes from my age to these new kids have changed significantly, and there might be an influence with the whole military career, because that’s an added disciplinary area that a lot of these kids won’t ever have.”

Though there is a gap between a veteran like Manning and those who are not in the military, Manning said she is okay being different in that regard.

“I’m always trying to adapt and overcome,” Manning said.