The Future of Parking at George Fox University

By: Aidan Arthur

Illustrated by: Carla Cieza

In coming years, the George Fox University (GFU) Newberg campus will undergo major changes including the eventual removal of the road between Edwards Hall and Murdock Library to be replaced by a walking path, The Crescent reported.

Though this will make GFU a more pedestrian-friendly campus, there are trade-offs. The campus may become less amenable to cars. Some areas of student parking are already frequently full, which can lead to illegal parking or spreading out into the campus’s surrounding neighborhoods (a violation of GFU’s “Good Neighbor Policy”).

Rob Felton, the director of Executive Communications at GFU, recognized that “parking is an important consideration in long-range planning,” but wasn’t able to say where parking would move. However, he did clarify that “city code will not allow us to construct without adequate parking.”

Ed Gierok, director of Campus Public Safety and Emergency Management, pointed out that the parking near the library is reserved for staff, so students will not be affected. Those spaces are frequently full, though, which seems to indicate that staff members may be inconvenienced by the change.

“They’re trying to maintain the same amount of parking that there currently is,” said Gierok. “I do not know what the blueprint looks like … so I have no idea where they plan to expand or replace the spaces that they lose.”

It seems that, though construction is planned to begin relatively soon, little is certain about how it may affect other areas of campus.

Gierok also said that the parking capacity is more complex than a simple balance of the number of cars and spots. He estimated that there are around 1,500 parking spots on campus, while over 2,200 parking permits have been sold this year.

With commuters coming and going at different times of day—as well as some registering two vehicles—not all of those cars are on campus at any given time. Having enough spots is only half the battle, though.

“We get calls pretty much daily” about students parking off-campus in violation of the Good Neighbor Policy, said Gierok—despite open parking spots in other areas of campus.

He also said that parking has been worse this year than before, partly because of the record-breaking freshman class of 2021 and a recent policy change that allowed all first-year students to obtain parking permits and removed the $300 fee associated with them.

If there comes a point at which lots are truly overloaded, Gierok expects to see the parking permit restriction for first-year students to return, rather than an increase of parking lot space. At the moment, the problem is one of logistics rather than of sheer numbers—except when visitors come, as can be seen in a Daily Bruin announcement that told students to “use street parking instead of campus parking lots.”

For now, he suggested that students be flexible. “We have a lot over by Plant Services and the softball field that is basically empty,” he said. Rather than resort to parking along the adjacent streets, students should first check other lots and avoid the risk of being ticketed.

Overall, it seems that the parking at GFU will remain “adequate” out of legal necessity. However, this may mean that bringing cars to campus becomes a more exclusive privilege once again.