Parking Enforcement Officer Aaron Chalmers may be the most misunderstood man on campus.

The feeling of dread elicited by a tiny green slip of paper on the windshield of a car is familiar to many Butler University students with cars on campus.

With parking enforcement officer Aaron Chalmers on duty, parking tickets are sure to find their way under the windshield wipers of vehicles in violation of parking restrictions.
While Chalmers has been cast as the man who doles out endless parking tickets, the man outside his parking pick-up truck tells quite a different story.

Q:   Describe your experience in parking enforcement here at Butler.
A:   I’ve been working as the parking enforcement officer for about 10 or 11 years.  I’ve been at Butler for 20 years.  I’ve worked as a dispatcher, police officer and security officer.  I’ve held about every position.  I got out of college and was looking for a job, and I ended up staying at college.  You guys stay the same age, and I just keep getting older and older.
Q:   How do you feel writing out tickets to students who probably don’t appreciate it?
A:   I don’t really think about it anymore.  I mean, when I first started, I felt pretty bad about it.  No one wants to be seen as the evil guy.  Now I hate to say that you get cold to it, but you really do.  I’ve repeated the action so many times that I’ve stopped thinking about it.

Q:   What is the funniest excuse you’ve heard to try to escape getting a ticket?
A:  I had a girl try to tell me that she never brings her car to campus, so she didn’t understand the parking.  She had run out of time on the parking meter.  That is pretty standard everywhere, not just at Butler.  I’ve heard about every story there is, so I can usually finish every excuse before it’s started.  Just be honest with me.

Q:   How do students react to instances where they walk up to you while you are writing the ticket?
A:  Well, there’s a whole lot of everything.  It happens daily.  Some argue, some beg, some just take the ticket.  I don’t want to give them a ticket any more than they want one.  If you don’t hand them out to violators, you lose control of the campus.

Q:  What are some of the weirdest places students have parked?
A:   Nothing immediately comes to mind as being really out of the ordinary.  I’ve never seen a car on top of a building or anything.  One year, some guys from one of the fraternity houses tried to park their truck on top of a large snow bank.  It got stuck, and they had to call a tow truck to come haul them out.  I guess they didn’t realize that snow can’t hold 8,000 pounds.

Q:  Have you ever gotten a parking ticket?
A:  Yes, I have.  I can’t remember the exact instances.  It was probably when I was about 16 or 17, so it was a couple years ago.  Well, I’m exaggerating on the “couple years ago” part.  I think I had let the parking meter expire.  I wasn’t really upset about it.  The police officers were just doing their job like every other person.  Like I am now.

Butler University President Jim Danko created a new position in his office and filled vacancies in two others, he announced in an April 2 memo.

The university now has an executive assistant to the Board of Trustees, a role filled by Carol Wroblewski.  Wroblewski is a former associate provost at Butler.  She will communicate with trustees  and work to involve them in university events, tasks previously left to the president’s assistant.

Danko hired Heather Vaughn, a former Rolls-Royce official, as his executive assistant. Vaughn replaces former Bobby Fong aide Ellen Clark, who retired after Fong left to become president at Ursinus College.

Cate Marshall replaces the departed Velinda Bennett as office assistant.  Marshall was a board administrator for the Indianapolis Department of Public Safety.

“What is common when you had a president in place as long as Bobby, you have staff changes,” said Ben Hunter, Chief of Staff and Executive Director of Public Safety.  “This restructuring increases our flexibility.”

Hunter moved his office from the Butler University Police Department to the president’s office in January.  Although most of his duties haven’t changed, Hunter assumed one major new one: direct oversight of compliance with state and federal regulations.

“By heart, I’m a policy wonk,” Hunter said. “Now that the staff is in place, it affords me the ability to get to those projects and those issues.”

Hunter said priority must be given to following the Clery Act and Title IX law, and he can now do that by working more closely with Danko.

“It’s a good fit,” he said. “It works out well with my background.”

Wroblewski, approaching 15 years of experience at Butler, said her position is a work in progress since she started work March 19.  She remains in the process of meeting the Board of Trustees.

“It’s fascinating to get to know this diverse group of people so intimately involved with the university,” she said.

Wroblewski holds weekly phone conversations with Chair John Hargrove.

Vaughn is in her fifth week at Butler, and Marshall is in her fourth.  Each said working with Danko is exciting.

“I can appreciate his perspective,” Vaughn said. “He’s business-minded. I have a similar mindset.”

Marshall said the Butler community has been very welcoming.

“I’ve been thrilled with people just stopping by to introduce themselves,” she said.  “I couldn’t be happier.”

Danko was out of town and unavailable for comment.

Hunter said Vaughn, Marshall and Wroblewski fit Danko’s innovative style of leadership.

“You want a president’s office that’s inviting and has great dynamics,” Hunter said. “President Danko has achieved that. It’s nice to have outstanding people who will offer a great atmosphere when people walk in the door.”

Hunter also said having a liaison to the Board of Trustees is a critical step.

“You have the board guiding our university in so many ways, having so many meetings a year, so it is important strategically,” Hunter said.

Wroblewski, who holds a doctorate degree in counseling psychology from Ball State University, said she doesn’t know how Clark managed board relations on top of other
duties.

“I am more than busy,” Wroblewski said. “That leads me to believe she was doing an incredible amount of work.”

Wroblewski said the trick, though, is to decide what information is need-to-know.

“That’s the core issue this first year,” she said. “I would hate to waste these busy peoples’ time.”

Vaughn said her biggest job is managing Danko’s calendar.  She said her new position applies many skills used in a 15-year career at Rolls-Royce.

“I just like helping people,” Vaughn said. “I feel that’s what my purpose is. It’s me.”

Vaughn said she has enjoyed Danko’s sense of humor.

“I don’t know if we’ll end up doing practical jokes,” she said, “but we’ll keep it lighthearted.”

Vaughn applied to be Danko’s aide after serving with Hunter on Indianapolis’ Super Bowl Host Committee.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Butler is a wonderful place to work,” Vaughn said.  “I felt I made a very good decision. It’s proven so.”

OUR POINT THIS WEEK: Hiring unnecessary staff while vital positions are being cut is not the way to help Butler students succeed | VOTE: 27-0-4

A core curriculum program  $400,000 in the red. Four percent increases in tuition.

Recent controversies whirling around campus seem to be following the tone of money, money, money.

Despite all of these fiscal mishaps and concerns, Butler University’s administration stands unfazed with its hands on its wallet. Butler President Jim Danko will be hiring three “advising staff” for the sole purpose of “mitigating student concerns.”

While these three overqualified individuals fill up space in the administrative offices, several committed, necessary faculty and staff are being undervalued.

From faculty put on constant one-year contracts—deservedly or not—to the elimination of the College of Communication’s internship coordinator, people on campus directly involved in “student concerns” are being removed while Danko stuffs his office with unnecessary positions.

Even worse, when approached about the elimination of CCOM’s internship coordinator, Interim Provost Kathryn Morris said it was simply a CCOM problem.

The problem is that some CCOM majors require an internship in order to earn their degree, not to mention that internships guarantee an increased likelihood of scoring a job after graduation.

The provost’s job is to oversee the university and ensure that students recieve the best education possible, and that includes involving herself in the grimy issues of the individual colleges.

By writing off the administration-mandated termination of a position that greatly benefits students as a college problem, the administration makes itself appear callous to the concerns students have about their education.

This administrative tendency to appear and act out-of-touch affects more than just CCOM. It stretches campus wide.

This becomes especially clear when looking 15 years back, during a financial crisis. Despite the severity of the situation, the administration found ways to retain and fund crucial positions, including the internship coordinator.

Students, staff and other community members have voiced their worries about widespread issues including parking, hiked tuition, financial aid and underfunded classes and programs.

But the administration has not proposed a long-lasting solution or, rather, not prioritized its spending in a way that reflects student concerns.

Instead of finding ways to work with the current budget to fund the core or save some vital positions, Danko’s administration has taken money from the same “underfunded” system to pay for three positions.

Instead of making pay equitable or expanding swamped departments, money is spent on installing fireplaces in Atherton and purchasing a Charger for the Butler University Police Department.

Instead of concrete, honest solutions and outlooks on Butler’s multitude of issues, we have more evasive answers and mixed messages about Butler being a “community of care.”

Enough politicking.  Enough unclear goals and innovation funds.

Butler administrators, if they really believe we live in a community of care, should prioritize spending to improve the very reason for their existence: the students and their educations.