Much has been said and little has been done about the parking situation at IVCC. As the weather gets colder, the half-mile trek from the parking lot to the school becomes drudgery for most students. Who cares?

A long walk like that will do some good. As some older people say, "It builds character." The walk doesn’t bother me, and in fact, it’s nothing new.

When I was a student at La Salle-Peru Township High School (Go Cavs!), the student parking lot was literally in a different town (Peru) than the school (La Salle) was. I have learned that if I want to drive anywhere that is important, I’ll have to walk a considerable distance.

At IVCC there are two parking lots. The pair of lots are as different as night and day. The main lot (lots 1-6) contains space for visitors, students, and teachers. The gravel lot on the East side of the school contains a different crowd. Almost everyone who parks in what I like to call, "The Gravelly Knoll," is a student.

While it is debatable, and no exact numbers are available, my fellow ‘Knollers’ and I know that it is a shorter walk from the gravel lot than it is from most spaces in the main lot. However, this shorter walks seems to come with a price tag, the gravel.

Under no circumstances is gravel an ideal surface for any road or parking lot. Gravel is an open invitation for ‘crazy’ motorists like myself to ‘peal out’ of the parking lot and spin around in circles. I personally take pride in my ability to control my car even when it is out of control in the gravel lot, however, in hindsight, I imagine that one day someone like myself will end up crashing. This is why The Gravelly Knoll must be paved.

I dread what may happen when winter rolls around and the gravel, which is slippery to begin with, becomes ice. Larry Rousey, director of facilities at IVCC, says plans for paving the gravelly knoll are in the school’s master plan. He says it will be another three to five years before the gravel disappears. Why can’t the powers that be allocate money for the outside of the building as well?