As Boston University’s restrictive guest policy has made clear, the administration has a distorted view of student lifestyles. Even if they want to prevent late-night trysting, BU should at least assist students in completing more studious endeavors after midnight. The Student Union has finally released its proposal for a 24-hour study lounge, and the administration should enact its reasonable proposals and consider going even farther.
The Union’s proposal includes solid research that should finally convince administrators of what students already know far too well: whenever studying actually happens, it frequently goes on past midnight and sometimes even all night. While BU has recognized that this happens during finals by keeping Mugar Memorial Library open 24 hours, midterms and papers occur year round. And while the lobby at 575 Commonwealth Ave. stays open all night, its location does not serve much of the BU campus. Although students often study in dorm rooms, other locations facilitate group studying and allow students to escape cramped rooms filled with distractions.
Having the West Campus dining hall open around the clock makes sense. Its location would provide all-night study locations to both ends of campus and provide a more central meeting place for groups of students who live both on and off campus. Since the rest of the building is already open and secured, keeping it open would require little additional expenses in terms of energy or staff.
The two 24-hour locations of West and ‘HoJo’ should meet student needs for all-night studying. However, moderately extending hours of other locations would better account for student lifestyles. BU should close the General Classroom Building as recommended because the few students who actually know where it is and that it stays open till 2 a.m. might be legitimately avoiding its lack of security.
Students would be much more likely to take advantage of the George Student Union, considering it is probably the most used meeting place on campus already and one of the few places smokers can fuel their studies with nicotine. The Union’s recommendations to keep only the basement open till 2 a.m. should be the minimum for extending hours. In addition to offering a more informal environment conducive to group study, keeping the GSU open later would be a step toward making it an actual hub for student life, which does not stop at 11 p.m. The current hours should be reversed, because few students are likely to hang out there on weekends until 1 a.m., but many might on weeknights. While the Union suggests keeping only the basement open late, which would provide access to a computer lab and the games room, students would also be likely to use the first floor for studying or watching TV.
Turning to Mugar the most obvious place to study on campus the Union’s recommendations again should be a bare minimum for administrators. Their suggestion to extend hours until 2 a.m. for the week before finals is particularly sensitive to all the papers and exams that happen at the end of the semester. While there is not enough demand to keep the library open all night throughout the semester, students would benefit from extending the hours until 1 or 2 in the morning, especially those craving a quiet locale for individual work. In case BU needs more rationale for extending Mugar’s hours, the main libraries at Boston College and Tufts University are open until 1 a.m., and while the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s main libraries close at midnight, a room there stays open 24 hours.
The Union’s proposal is both rational and backed up by research showing student demand exists for their ideas, and meeting with administrators along the way should help them become reality. Although those meetings may have delayed the proposal, it still seems a bit ridiculous that the committee needed over two months to put together a six-page proposal. Getting it on Provost Dennis Berkey’s desk a few weeks earlier certainly would have helped the Union see some changes implemented this semester, which they still envision happening. The only other flaw in the Union’s approach to increasing late-night studying locales is expecting a response by the end of this week. Berkey has said that it will take at least a couple weeks, which is reasonable but could mean that the proposal gets shelved over the summer and then forgotten.
Extending hours for studying on campus will require Berkey to meet with many other officials since security and staff issues must be considered. Employee schedules will change, janitorial services might shift times, additional hiring may need to occur and minor changes to the buildings could be required to keep them secure. Doing this will take extra money, but it is well worth it if it makes it easier for students to accomplish their primary goal here. Extending hours at the library and GSU and providing another 24-hour study location for BU’s expansive campus is the least BU can do to make up for taking away another all-night option: IHOP.
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