If the proposal passes fully, Young Apartments would have the fifth most open dorm hours of all Nazarene schools.

At ENC, Young Apartments has the most open dorm hours, from 6 to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Being an upperclassmen dormitory, some students think Young should have extended hours.

After extensive research and discussion with counterparts at other Nazarene schools, Payne Ford, student body president, along with sophomore Maegan Bourne, submitted a proposal for extended open dorm hours on campus.

Ford believes extended hours would help foster community on campus.

“It would help with community building. When open dorms are only four hours a day, it ends up being more about couples, instead of the community,” said Ford.

He continued, “You can’t really go in and out [of the dorms] the way you would be able to if they were longer.”

In January, Ford sent a proposal for extended open dorm hours for Young residents. The following, from the proposal, illustrates his purpose:

“Extending the Visitation Hours for the student residents of Young Apartments will allow Open House to both appear and become less of a scheduled hangout, and more of an everyday occurrence of community building. This proposition is only intended, as stated above, for the student residents of Young Apartments. It is certain that Open Dorms is a privilege. And as such, it should initially be awarded to the upperclassmen.”

An initial eight-question survey was sent to all Young residents, in which responders selected the days and times that they would prefer to have open dorms. Among the 65 residents to respond:

“43.1% want open dorms to begin at 12:00pm Monday through Thursday and 50.8% on Fridays and Saturdays. Likewise, in voting for the end time, 46.2% of students voted for a 12:00am ending Monday through Thursday and 70.8% voted for a 12:00am ending of Open House on Fridays and Saturdays.”

In addition, Young residents were asked, “If Young’s Open House hours were changed to your selection, what would be the effect on the ENC community as a whole?”

Almost 80 percent voted that it would create a positive change, while the other 20 percent said there would be no change. No one voted that it would create a negative change.

With the help of the survey, Ford and Bourne were able to create their proposal around the provided answers. They wrote, “We propose that the Open House Visitation Hours in Young Apartments be extended to 12:00am to 11:00pm for Sunday through Thursday and 12:00pm to 12:00am on Fridays and Saturdays.”

Ford and Bourne hope to see the policy change for the residents of Young implemented by the end of this year, and to possibly see similar open dorms changes for the other resident halls in the future.