By Rory McCarty

Senior Reporter

Since Oakland University is a school where the vast majority of students are commuters, most students need to drive in order to get to class. But the ever climbing price of gas can make the drive to school a financial crisis.

That’s where the Center for Student Activities is hoping to help students out by offering a message board for students to post and set up carpools in their area.

There is a bulletin board outside of the CSA office in the Oakland Center where commuter students hoping to arrange a carpool can post their contact information to link up with other students in their area. Students who live on campus but are looking to go home for a weekend can post similar carpool requests on a separate message board at Vandenberg Hall near the dining hall.

“I’ve seen on other bulletin boards students looking for a ride, so students need to know about this one. There are 51 boards on campus, but this one is specifically for carpools,” said Lori Marsh, Office Assistant at CSA.

The message board didn’t come about because students were especially vocal in demanding it, however.

“We’re being proactive, particularly because 90 percent of students are commuters,” Jean Ann Miller, the Director of CSA, said.

Miller wants students to be aware of the new Commuter Connections section of the CSA website that can provide information about other public transport.

In the future, CSA’s website may have an online message board that serves the same purpose as the physical one.

“We’ve talked about doing something like OUSC Bookswap, but we haven’t gotten the details of that worked out, because we’d be stepping in and we need to be careful with the protection of students,” Marsh said.

So far, the board outside of CSA has been used by a couple of students like incoming freshman Ariel Nann, who is seeking a carpool not to avoid high gas prices or cut back on pollution, but because for now he isn’t able to drive.

Also outside the CSA office is a list of gas prices for the Rochester Hills area to further help commuting students.  The list comes from detroitgasprices.com.

In addition to everything else, Oct. 29 will be Make A Commuter Connection Day at OU, which will be an event that focuses on safety while driving. CSA is currently looking for students to volunteer to help out with the event.