Soon, Fraternity and Sorority Life will call east campus home, alongside the current dormitory residents. Since Louie’s Diner will be closed, the line to the only campus cafeteria will snake out of the Nebraskan Student Union doors. Without additional parking for residents, vehicles will fill several blocks of Kearney’s surrounding streets.

This is The Antelope’s prediction for next fall.

East campus will be cramped when the Greek students move to the new housing facilities. In preparation, UNK administrators need to accommodate the loss of a cafeteria and the influx of on-campus residents.

Here is our first suggestion, though we know it makes us sound like a broken record. Campus residents need parking spaces that are closer to their dorms in well-lit areas.

Jon Watts, the vice chancellor of Business and Finance, said he is speaking to realtors about getting more land off campus for parking. 

We appreciate these efforts, and in the future, University Residence South and North could even be repurposed for Zone C, or residential parking.

That leads us to wonder if Zone A, or Greek parking passes, will even exist next school year. 

Since Zone A is nowhere near the new dorms, where will the fraternity and sorority members park next fall?

Let’s push the parking situation aside to discuss the dining hall conundrum. Will students with dining plans have enough time to eat between classes at The Graze? 

When URN and URS close, so will Louie’s Diner. 

The lines are already long with Sodexo recovering from a worker shortage. Will the cafeteria workers be prepared to handle the impending wave of hungry students? 

According to Watts, the new healthcare facilities on west campus will host a second cafeteria for students who spend time in Discovery Hall or West Center. 

We think this is a great idea, however, dorm residents would have a 15-minute walk, and this resource will not be finished for quite a while. If Louie’s Diner workers transition to The Graze, workers will still be needed to run this new cafeteria. 

The Antelope agrees that Fraternity and Sorority Life is in desperate need of new housing. Three years ago, URN and URS were deemed unfit to live in with problems related to leaking, flooding and faulty heating and air conditioning systems. And there are more issues where that came from. 

But administrators and students need to brace themselves for how the Greek move will impact east campus. 

While complaining about parking is fun, it is not the solution here.

Count your blessings, Lopers. It’s a lot easier to find a nearby parking spot in Kearney than it is in Lincoln or Omaha. 

Instead, UNK needs to plan for more vehicles and more mouths to feed.