Courtney Muenchow | Staff Writer

Winter can be a pain for Iowa residents. The cold requires extra effort just so you don’t turn into a walking icicle, and battling that wind seems like more effort than it’s worth some days. There are mornings when knowing that winter awaits outside makes students wish they could just snuggle deeper into their blankets and pretend they don’t have responsibilities.

Those that do get up and face the chill get to deal with another factor: snow. Perhaps it should be expected that this freezing white stuff should show its face every year, but it still catches many by surprise. It’s a good thing this is Iowa, though. Iowa, one of the states that’s completely prepared for snow, with plows at the ready and road salt (or sand) in abundance. Right?

Here at Buena Vista University, many students were left to fight their own way through the snow on that Sunday we encountered the dump of winter’s finest. Students who expected to go somewhere that day were greeted with an unpleasant surprise. For one, the doors of some of the dormitories wouldn’t budge against mounds of snow leaning against them. That, however, was not the biggest problem.

The parking lots were. It’s one thing to have the snow not plowed early in the morning; even impatient college students understand that these things take time. On the other hand, when it is four in the afternoon and that thick blanket is still present, some may have reason to become a bit annoyed.

Especially when the guest parking lots, completely unused for the day, are clear, but the student lots haven’t been touched.

Caring about BVU’s guests is understandable, but what of the students now stuck in their own lot? These students, you’ll remember, pay steep fees to live and go to school on campus. They assume that certain functions, such as plowing a parking lot, are included within that fee. It’s not like students don’t have a life outside of their dorm, either. Some need access to their cars for Sunday church or work or whatever it is they have planned. Prioritizing the guest lots seems like spitting in the faces of these paying students.

If we take away the burn of this prioritization and pretend it’s okay, there’s still the fact that the student parking lot was not plowed until a day later. At that point, it was too late. Anyone who had gone home for the weekend or had somehow managed going out for the day then had to face the challenge of driving through the sticky snow and somehow maneuvering into a space occupied with, you guessed it, more snow. Some irritated students, possibly with low-to-the-ground cars such as my own, decided not to risk getting stuck and park instead in the guest parking lots that were almost completely snow-free.

That didn’t last long.

After being told to move into the snow-covered lot, car after car was left spinning their wheels against the snow. Living with my window facing this parking lot, I was witness to these vehicles inching along bumper-deep in snow, pushed by three or four helpful neighbors in an attempt to simply park the car. Parking a car should not be that difficult.

The school, did, however, finally pull through and plow that parking lot the next morning. Finally. I suppose they deserve credit for actually doing it, and the plowing workers themselves should wholeheartedly be thanked, despite all the complaints. Although the timing may not have been ideal, the task was done.

If we’re lucky, Iowa weather cooperating, we won’t have to deal with these frustrating issues again anytime soon.