Starting next year, residence hall open hours will be extended on the weekends. Included in the changes, Thursday nights will become the only night without open hours. This all in response to the Residence Life Student Satisfaction Survey.
According to Marc Smithers, director of residence life & housing, starting in the 2015-2016 school year, all residence halls will have open hours extended to 1am on Friday night and extended until 12am on Saturday nights. In surveys for the last several years, Smithers said, “Students [have been] asking for an updated open hours policy, especially talking about wanting to stay later on the weekends.”
Saturday open hours will now start at 7 p.m., instead of 4 p.m., to reduce confusion, add consistency throughout the week, and compensate for later hours on Friday and Saturday according to Smithers.
Additionally, open hours will now be in effect on Monday nights in only the men’s dorms, Rothenbuhler and Shenawana. On Wednesday nights, only the women’s dorms, Lambien and Gillette, will have open hours. This is based on a staggered model used at Taylor University according to Smithers.
A way to remember the days is “Monday men’s, Wednesday women’s,” said Smithers.
This will benefit students in many ways. One of these ways is more interaction cross hall among the students according to Krista Maroni, Lambein resident director. She said, I’ve noticed that students tend to stick to visiting one building of the opposite gender (whichever that might be for any given couple or friend group).”
Jon Craton, Rothenbuhler resident director, said in addition to listening to the majority, Residence Life also wants to “respect the smaller constituency on campus that appreciates the privacy and freedom that comes from not having opposite gendered students on their floor every night.”
School night open hour times on Sunday through Wednesday will remain the same from 7-11 p.m. This leaves Thursday the only night with no open hours in the dorms.
Addressing the the potential student concern for the change’s effect on quiet hours, Smithers said, “We don’t see when hours are not quiet hours all the other hours as ‘loud hours.’ There’s a healthy respect for community in both non-quiet hours and quiet hours.”
Part of the decision is also budgetary and practical, said Smithers, because these open hours will now reflect the hours of the proctor desk. “This will be reflecting the lounge hours, so the lounges will close at the same time that the desk close, at the same time open hours close,” he said. “We are trying to make it less confusing.”
Responding to requests for open hours all hours of the day, Smithers said, “we value the kind of community we can build in the residence hall and so when we have this constant pressure to invite people into our residence hall that takes away from the floor community and the hall community that can be built.”
“We like to set aside times when we can open up the residence halls to outside visitors,” said Smithers. “But we also like to have the bulk majority of our time be for the residence, for the hall, for the floor.”
Overall, Residence Life expects students to respond positively, as well as benefit from the changes. Maroni said, “There will always be push back, any change no matter the size has some, but I think this will benefit the student body overall. They’ve been given more trust, freedom and hopefully more ownership over their ability to effect campus rules and policy.”