A need to pump the brakes in debates over diplomas

Imagine a Keene State College Dean’s List student walking up to the stage on graduation day to accept their diploma. Only when they arrive, as the senior’s arm reaches out to grab the document they’ve worked four years to earn, the diploma disappears in a puff of smoke. Denied. It is later explained that the reason for the rejection was the result of unpaid parking tickets in Keene.

Such a scenario, with the exception of somebody’s diploma disappearing into thin air during graduation, would become common practice if a recently developed initiative were to take effect. The proposal, created by retired police detective Frederick B. Parsells, calls for the withholding of diplomas for students who have outstanding parking fees. While there are rules in place to detain transcripts on the KSC campus because of parking problems, Parsells’ idea would take that concept a step further, nabbing the diplomas from grads.

The former city councilor reasons that students should be held accountable for their actions just like everyone else and penalized if they don’t cooperate. He has a point. A college student is not and cannot be exempt from the law. But only until sufficient and substantial evidence of widespread violations is presented can major action be considered. Before assumptions are made, a statistical breakdown of a) the number of students involved over a long-term period and b) the percentage of those students who are actually neglecting to pay their parking tickets must be made.

At this stage, its premature to call for a mandate if the proper legal procedures haven’t been carried out.

There is no correlation between a parking ticket and a student’s academic competence. A diploma is a representation of success within a place of learning, of comprehension. How hard someone has studied or how much effort is put into a senior project doesn’t influence his or her decision-making on the road, especially when deciding where to park. These are two separate entities. When penalizing a 4.0 average student for an off-campus mistake on on-campus grounds, away from the school’s own constitution, blame is shifted to an inappropriate place.

Extra burden is placed on the student when singling them out among other Keene citizens and putting their post-collegiate prospects in jeopardy. The responsibility of paying the ticket resides in the city where the violation was made. It is not the business of KSC to intrude unless said violation is on campus. There are valid reasons for withholding a diploma, including financial quandaries and academic probations. A ten-dollar parking ticket isn’t one of them.