Dean of Students Explains 'No Cars for Freshmen'

CMC is joining with Pitzer College and Pomona College in restricting freshmen from bringing cars to campus next year. It’s my understanding that HMC is also considering a similar decision for the future, but no decisions have been made for the coming year. Each of the Claremont Colleges has a slightly different set of circumstances for their decisions, and I cannot speak for the others.

In CMC’s case, the construction of the Kravis Center and the re-routing of traffic around the College have caused us to become concerned about the supply and location of parking for students, faculty, staff, and visitors. There are also environmental and community reasons why we think a restriction on freshman (not transfer students) cars will be beneficial. But the supply and location of parking is a concern.Of course, there may be a few new students who have exceptional situations that request a waiver to the parking restriction. A few already have. We’ll review them on a case-by-case basis.

To help mitigate the situation, we have a couple of things we’re working on this summer. First, we’re building a small bike shop in the basement of Wohlford Hall. Students will be able to sign out “loaner” bikes for free, as well as get tires inflated, minor repairs, and things like that. It will be staffed by students. Of course, bikes aren’t helpful for every situation, but you can take one to run an errand in the Village.

Second, the Claremont University Consortium is in discussions with a national bank to add an ATM machine and/or branch bank in the Honnold-Mudd Library. There will also be a new coffeeshop opening in the Honnold-Mudd Library this year. These services may cut down the number of off-campus trips students need to make.

Finally, all of these issues are going to be more comprehensively addressed through the master planning process, which will be completed in the next one to two years.

Jeff Huang

If you're wondering what an "exceptional circumstance" is for the sake of an exemption to the parking rule, I cannot possibly define all of them. As a general rule, I would think that family and medical matters would be two important categories. An example might be that a student lives in Southern California and has a family member with an ongoing illness. Of course, we would verify this and then approve it.