Timmy Greene | Staff photographer
The upperclassmen dorm that houses both men and women has gone from 24 weekly open house hours to a total of 34 weekly hours.
Open house hours have changed for the third time in two years.
At the beginning of the 2012 fall semester, all open dorm hours on campus changed to 6 to 10 p.m. from 7 to 11 p.m. the previous year.
The hours have changed again, but this time only for Young Apartments. The upperclassmen dorm that houses both men and women has gone from 24 weekly open house hours to a total of 34 weekly hours.
The same 6 to 10 p.m. hours apply Monday-Thursday, but students living in Young can now have guests of the opposite sex on their floors from 2 to 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
Student Body President Payne Ford and sophomore Meagan Bourne submitted a proposal earlier in the semester to up Young’s weekly open house hours to 79 hours.
“Overall, the people we’ve talked to seem pretty happy with the change,” said Ford.
Ford did acknowledge that not everyone is satisfied with the new hours.
“I’ve heard [that] some people [are] annoyed because their roommates have their significant others in the room all day or at hours they aren’t used to,” said Ford.
He continued, “I think this is just growing pains, though, and it should subside as everybody gets used to the change and the additional hours shift toward being time for community building and away from being hangout time for couples.”
Some students were under the impression that open dorms would be extended during weekdays, in addition to weekends.
“The changes are nice, but we were teased into thinking the hours were [going to] change during the week and during the weekend. It’s nice that the hours have increased, but I think they should increase until midnight,” said senior Samantha Jones.
Sophomore Sarah Bradley believes the changes are a good starting point to potentially increase hours even more in future years.
“The new open dorm hours are great and I think it’s a good step in the right direction,” said Bradley.
Ford said that his decision to write a proposal came from the constant complaints he heard regarding the previous open dorm hours.
“I really feel [that] when open dorms are confined to four hours, couples use all of that time to spend one-on-one time. But, if the hours are widened, it will become more about friendships and people just stopping by for small periods of time, which I think has a lot of potential to build community,” said Ford.
Other students don’t necessarily see the changes as being all positive.
“The changes don’t really affect anything. People are going to break the rules regardless of what the hours are,” said sophomore Nathan Mann.
While Ford would like to see additional open dorm hours in other dormitories, Young was the most obvious place to start.
“The proposal was limited to Young because I knew a proposal for upperclassman housing would be more readily approved than one for the [other] dorms. I hope that through this new policy, the student body will show the good that can come from widening open dorms hours and this will result in similar expansions in the dorms,” concluded Ford.