University of Georgia - Pandora Yearbook (Athens, GA)

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nDi»[iif ilVJPJg||i) TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT • Cappy Doxey • OK! Everybody move to the middle of the bus. Let some people on here. Let ' s squeeze ' em all in. Sound familiar? It should if one rides a UGA bus between 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM. Whether a student rides a Millege, Russell, Orbit, North-South, or East-West one will at some time experi- ence the problem of over- crowding at the University of Georgia. The problem persists not only in the busing system, but also in the dining halls, drop add sessions, classes, and parking lots. It is an irri- tating aspect of our school, and unfortunately it has worsened. Why the problem? First of all, this year ' s freshmen class is the largest ever, consisting of 5,234 students. A total of 27,176 undergraduate and graduate students are pres- ently enrolled. Obviously, the University ' s facilities have difficulty handling these numbers. For example, both fall and winter quar- ters, 500 students crammed into the Fine Arts auditori- um to attend a MAN 201 class taught by Dr. Huseman in fall and Dr. Hatfield in winter. Another one of the more aggravating problems is the parking situation. Have you ever circled around at least two parking lots for about 20 minutes to find a parking space? Well, you ' re not the only one. Maureen Pen- ninger, a sophomore journal- ism major, gripes, Forty minutes recycling through the Reed parking lots is my usual Sunday welcome-back- to-Athens routine! Since there are more students with cars on campus than there are parking spaces available, the UGA Parking Services is forced to sell more parking permits than there are park- ing spaces. Therefore, as the number of students who bring their cars to the Uni- versity increases, so will the problem of finding a decent parking space increase. But, let ' s look on the bright side. This ever-grow- ing problem may have posi- tive results! The Admissions Department has set a goal to lower next year ' s enrollment to 3,350 new freshmen. Steve Frankel, University presi- dent ' s spokesman said, A reduction of enrollment will gradually increase student quality. This will also en- able UGA to raise its stan- dards for admission. In addi- tion, t he reduction will improve the quality of in- struction a student receives due to a better student-facul- ty ratio. — with Young-Sun Yun