Proposal Essay ENG-106 PDF

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1 December 9, 2018 English 106 Parking Garage Pile up

Anybody could tell you that littering is against the law, yet it is still found just about everywhere you go. Finding this on a large scale is not uncommon, and sadly expected in the average city or large town. Yet, there are times where one may find litter in an unexpected place, like that of a private Christian University, but this is something seen clearly at Grand Canyon University. Littered trash lay in piles on every floor of many parking garages on this campus. GCU has a known stance against littering, and that can be seen by the trash cans provided in the parking garage, as well as their “adopt-a-highway” program they joined to clean the freeway closest to GCU. These attempts have been relatively futile, as students are the ones creating this unsightly scene, and they should be the ones who are tasked with cleaning it up. Yet, people do not tend to have such a giving heart, especially when they think so highly of themselves to dump their trash on the floors of the parking garage when a trash can is deemed too far to access. A student led litter cleanup organization must be implemented to combat the mass amounts of litter in GCU parking garages, as well as more trash cans that are within thirty to fifty feet of the vehicles (Burnley, 2015.) It is easily seen that students desire no part in cleaning up litter across campus because they have no return benefit in doing so. Due to this, students must be given incentive to clean the garages many litter piles. A system must be implemented that benefits students both financially and mentally to build teams to clean specific parking garages regularly. Students would form in groups of 4-10 people and be assigned to a singular parking garage to clean every other day, switching between workers within the team to keep the garages clean every day. If a team was

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assigned to each parking garage, they would be able to maintain the desired level of cleanliness that GCU strives for within the parking structures. Students working as cleaners will be compensated minimum wage for their efforts and be provided uniforms, or brightly colored vests during their working hours. In addition to this effort, many students complain about the lack of trash cans provided on campus. The effect of having trash cans in a higher volume, short distance setting has been proven affective, and as stated by a GCU student “if trash cans were implemented in the same system that Disneyland has done, the amount of litter plaguing GCU would decrease drastically” Jacob, G. (2018, December 8) (personal interview) Students at GCU are granted access to on campus or near campus parking via five parking garages and three parking lots. Each of these parking areas are priced based off their location to the main campus. This allows students a moderately safe location to store their vehicles while attending their classes or living on campus. Despite having multiple trash cans in every level of every parking garage, many students have chosen to simply dump their excess trash wherever they see fit, which tends to pile up in parking spots. This ignorant habit affects each person who uses these parking garages. First, maintenance workers at GCU are now tasked with cleaning up the trails of litterers on top of their normal jobs. This is not only time consuming, but embarrassing, and costly for the school itself. Secondly, Litter affects the perception of visitors negatively, especially in the quantities that students are leaving behind, and discourage potential students from enrolling in the school. Thirdly, this affects students already enrolled in the school. Some trash piles are so dense parking spots become unavailable to students. This is unfair and unethical, not only because of the burden it places onto GCU, but also due to the price students must pay for the privilege to park in these locations.

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Though most people will state that littering is wrong, or at minimum be able to state that this act is against the law, some may still oppose introducing a student led litter cleanup organization. Having student workers cleaning up litter is not as beneficial to their future careers compared to other student worker positions available on campus. Student workers who manage other aspects of the GCU campus learn about how businesses are ran, they learn essential work life skills, and experience work life along with fellow schoolmates which creates a friendly learning community that many students need. Another place some may disagree is that by allowing students to take charge of keeping the parking garages clean, the GCU ground workers will have less work to accomplish. First, by re-assigning this added responsibility to the student workers rather than ground workers GCU will be able to move their time and efforts into more pressing matters throughout the school. This is especially important because of the astounding rate in which GCU is expanding their already large campus. For the student workers, much can be learned from even a simple job such as this. Essential work ethic skills are developed doing such a tedious task, such as responsibility, efficiency, diligence, and time management. Though many will not find the job opportunity particularly “exciting,” students will find that on campus jobs get increasingly more difficult to find every day of the school year. By granting students financial compensation to keep these parking locations clean, GCU would save money which would normally go to on campus maintenance workers, as well as maintain the clean, and respectable image GCU desires. Cleanliness is not an easy task, but it is truly essential. Students, as well as GCU itself must uphold a standard of cleanliness to benefit school reputation as well as health standards. With the formation of a student litter team, GCU will be assisted in their pursuit of a clean, healthy campus, while the students who choose to involve themselves in this process will be

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benefited with learning various work life skills, while being compensated for their efforts, all the while clearing up time for GCU’s ground workers who can focus their efforts on the rest of this large, continually expanding campus. With the combined efforts of GCU peers and students the pursuit of a healthy, clean campus is more possible than ever before.

References: Burnley, M. (2015, March 16). Can Disneyland Help Clean Up "Filthadelphia"? Retrieved from

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https://www.phillymag.com/citified/2015/03/16/can-disneyland-help-filthadelphia/ Davis, L. M. (2006). Has Big Brother Moved Off Campus? An Examination of College Communities’ Responses to Unruly Student Behavior. Journal of Law & Education, 35(2), 153–197. Retrieved from https://lopes.idm.oclc.org/login? url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? direct=true&db=ofs&AN=502641421&site=eds-live&scope=site Long, J., Harre, N., & Atkinson, Q. D. (n.d.). Understanding Change in Recycling and Littering Behavior Across a School Social Network. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY, 53(3–4), 462–474. https://doiorg.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1007/s10464-013-9613-3 Student-organized campus clean up nets 285 pounds of litter in three hours. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://news.ucsc.edu/2015/05/campus-clean-up.html...