The document discusses several issues with the Central Ohio Technical College Newark campus including parking issues, technical problems, and customer service issues at the Gateway. Parking is an ongoing problem, with student parking far from buildings and many empty faculty spaces. The campus also experiences frequent technical problems like internet outages and incorrect assignment submission dates. Students also face long wait times at the Gateway with no system to manage customer flow. The document proposes solutions like opening faculty parking after hours, using a numbering system at the Gateway, and improving the reliability of campus internet and technology systems.

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Tina Barnett
Todd Alexander
ENGL 207 English and Business Communications
1 August 2016
Need For Changes On Campus
With the continuously raising college expenses and never-ending expectations of students
who attend college, there are unresolved issues and complaints overall that should be met and
fixed, from parking issues, to technical issues, to the Gateway service issues. With the price
students pay to attend college, there appears to be a need for some changes to ensure a good
college experience overall.
Central Ohio Technical College and The Ohio State University share space at the Newark
campus. There are a total of six occupied buildings used by staff and students throughout the
year, 5-7 days a week: Founders Hall, Hopewell Hall, Adena Hall, the Reese Center, Lefevre
Hall, and the Warner Center. These buildings are utilized throughout morning, afternoon, and
evening class times.
Parking on the Newark campus for the Central Ohio Technical College (COTC) and The
Ohio State University (OSU) appears to have enough parking for students, faculty, and staff, but
there are issues with the parking as well. Concerns with the current parking on campus range
from poor lighting, to unsafe circumstances for students walking at night to their vehicle, to not
enough security, to incurring parking fines for being parked in faculty/staff designated parking
areas, to even arriving late for classes due to too far a distance overall when searching for

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parking and then settling for a parking space that is quite a distance away from the building the
student is walking to.
Areas for students, visitors, staff, and faculty are designated by two different colors of
parking lines. The white-lined, or unrestricted, parking areas on campus are shared by students,
visitors, and employees without Faculty/Staff permits. Not only should their vehicle be parked
inside of the white-lined areas, but the white lines must be on both side of the vehicle. The
faculty and staff designated areas are painted yellow lines and they can have a white line on one
side of their vehicle. The students are also expected to request for a parking pass to park in these
designated areas. Thankfully, the parking passes that students are required to have for parking
are free, whereas there is a cost for parking on the main campus of The Ohio State University.
All faculty/staff at COTC have reserved parking spaces in large areas which are closest
areas to each one of the buildings on the Newark campus where classes are held throughout the
daytime and evening hours. Understandably, the faculty should have adequate parking, but there
appears to be several empty faculty parking spaces on any given day, and almost always at any
given time of the day. This is concerning, since the students end up parking such a distance from
the school to get to class and walk past multiple empty staff parking places. This just seems like
such a waste of parking when it is all said and done.
Most businesses require their employees to park the furthest away, so that the customers
have the closer parking places. Even hospitals and medical facilities require their staff to park in
designated areas furthest away, so that visitors and patients have the closer parking places.
Honestly, what makes the college any different? The students are paying for the expenses
incurred and paid out by the college; so actually, the students are the customers, and should
honestly be treated as such.

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I am considered faculty at The Ohio State University Medical Center and hold a faculty
parking permit which I pay close to $80.00 monthly to maintain. There are times that I utilize
the faculty parking on the Newark campus when I cannot find adequate student parking and there
are multiple empty parking places in the faculty parking. I only do this every now and then,
since I am a student on this campus. I don’t feel bad about this either, since I do pay such a
substantial expense for parking. It only feels a little awkward when other classmates may see me
walk to my car.
In the evening hours and summertime hours, the faculty parking looks like a “ghost
town”- literally! Even though there is hardly anyone on the campus grounds during summertime
and evening hours, students are still expected to park in designated student parking areas which
are a further walking distance from the buildings. This is extremely concerning, because the
lighting is definitely not adequate and students can easily become victims of crime.
The campus imposed parking regulations and they are in effect and enforced 24 hours per
day. Regardless of weather or crowded parking conditions, the responsibility for finding a legal
parking space rests with the motor vehicle operator, ie: student, faculty, staff, or visitors
(cotc.edu). According to COTC’s website concerning parking, “the Newark Campus reserves the
right to remove, or have removed and impounded, any vehicle that is parked in such a manner as
to constitute a hazard or parking violation.” “Owners of such vehicles will be required to pay all
costs involved” (cotc.edu). Students are fully aware of these parking regulations, but most
visitors are not. There are some parking signs here and there posted for visitors, indicating
where they are designated to park, but they are not easily visible when the visitors are paying
more attention to trying to find the building they are looking for.

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There are easy solutions to the parking dilemmas that everyone who parks at the college
can ultimately benefit from. Faculty parking areas should be open to all students, visitors, staff,
and faculty after 5pm and on weekends. The security can drive through the parking at night and
throughout the weekends to watch for crime related issues and help students unlock or start their
vehicles instead of looking to see if students are illegally parked in the faculty parking. The
college can display signs that indicate the time restrictions for parking that currently is reserved
for faculty/staff permit holders only as well as add it to the parking information on the college
website.
Aside from the parking issues on the Newark campus, there are also concerns at the
Gateway. There are times where a student can walk up and speak to an advisor as soon as they
check in, but there are also times where a student walks up to the desk to speak to an advisor and
is asked to wait in a seat for an advisor to call them up to the desk. I have had to wait 25 minutes
to speak to an advisor to turn in paperwork and ended up being late to class. This instance
bothered me because there were three advisors sitting in seats at the front desk that were doing
other tasks and then began talking to each other as I was sitting waiting on them to notice I was
waiting. This is a customer service issue. A student who is waiting in front of the advisor should
always come first. A possible solution for this issue could be to have a number system, where a
student pulls a number tab and each advisor window has a lit number above it to announce when
it is the next students turn to walk up to the window to speak to an advisor. This is system is
used in the Veteran Affairs (VA) ambulatory clinics as well as the Department of Motor Vehicles
(DMV), just to name a couple. This system works well and everyone knows when the next
number is called. It helps to keep the flow of the waiting lines moving and keeps the staff
accountable.

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Another solution to help with the issues of unnecessary wait time at the Gateway is to
have a check in station where the students can swipe their ID card to initiate an electronic sign-in
time where accountability is held on the staff to avoid long wait times and adhere to the
student/customer.
Technical issues are becoming more of a problem on and off campus. There are times
where areas on the homepage of Central Ohio Technical College (COTC) are not working
properly. I had an instance about a year ago, where I was not able to get on Moodle for a week.
This was stressful and concerning for me, especially since I had assignments that were due
through Moodle for my on-campus assignments as well as my online assignments. I had to go
another way into moodle, instead of going through the MYCOTC porthole which I traditionally
use.
There was a time that I wrote an eleven page paper for Ethics and saved it on moodle; or
so I thought I did. When I attempted to attach the file to moodle for submission, the file was not
saved on the moodle file area where I thought I had saved it. I then tried to retrieve it from the
computer and it was unfortunately irretrievable. I called the COTC IT help desk and received a
recording to leave a message and someone would call me back within 24 hours. What kind of
service is this from a help desk? Sadly, I called The Ohio State University Medical Center
(OSUMC) IT Help Desk to ask for assistance in retrieving my last document. Regrettably, they
were unable to find the lost paper, but at least they were available for immediate assistance. The
college relies heavily on online materials and submissions and should be available for anyone
who calls for assistance. To leave a message for a “help desk,” and then wait for someone to
return your call is unacceptable! Needless to say, the COTC help desk called back the following

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day and could offer no more support than what I received from The OSUMC help desk; in fact,
they offered less help.
The loss of internet service connection while on the Newark Campus server has become a
more known concern here lately. The school relies on the internet for many assignments and
informational material, so they should have a server that is fast and reliable at all times. I
understand that technology is not perfect, but it is ridiculous to be knocked off the server several
times in one sitting. I have even been on an important call within the building and last phone
connection! How is this possible? The school should offer the most up-to-date and reliable
technology services for the cost of tuition each student pays to attend classes on campus as well
as online.
Another issue I have noticed with some of the courses is the information provided in the
syllabus is inaccurate. Most of them have been edited to have correct dates on them for students
to be able to plan according for the deadline dates of assignments, but there have been two that I
noticed since attending classes here at this campus, that have not been updated with correct
information. Usually once the instructor has been notified by a student that the dates provided in
the syllabus are incorrect they quickly make the corrections and then re-submit the corrected
syllabus to the students who are attending that class. This is not usually a big deal since the
instructors make the changes, but it is just an initial inconvenience.
Along with the dates being incorrect in the syllabus at times, the assignment submission
drop box can also have incorrect dates attached. There are many times when I submit an
assignment in the drop box for grading that I am informed that I have submitted an assignment a
few months and few days late. There have even been times that my submission shows that I
have added my assignment over a year late for grading. Obviously, I know that this is not

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correct, but I worry that my assignment is not actually submitted or that the drop box will not
actually let me submit my assignment because it has closed for submission for being so overdue.
The final concern in college is the cost of tuition rising yearly. Many students have
financial aid, or utilize some type of assistance, but for those who do not and pay out of their
own pockets, the final cost for tuition becomes an overwhelming expense as the semesters add
up. There are times that the school offers scholarships for good academics. This is a wonderful
thing that the college offers, because it promotes and rewards students to strive for good grades
and to do the best they can throughout their college career. I recently received a scholarship
from the Coshocton Foundation. This was awarded to a student who resides in Coshocton
County and attends COTC with good academics. I was surprised and honored to receive this
award!
With all the issues that have been provided in this proposal, it is obvious that there are
some good things that the college provides for a student who attends the Newark campus, but
there are also some concerns that can be improved upon to include continuously raising college
expenses, parking issues, technical issues, and Gateway service issues. With the high college
expenses students pay to attend college, it is imperative for some changes to be made by the
college campus in order to ensure a good college experience overall.

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References
http://www.cotc.edu/depts/newark-campus-parking. n.d. Web. 18 July 2016.