Insomniacs might be upset to hear they can no longer camp out in the library until 4 a.m., due to the Cullom-Davis Library changing its hours to accommodate early birds.
The library still opens at 7:30 a.m. Monday through Thursday, but now closes at 3:30 a.m. in order to open an hour earlier Saturday and Sunday at 10 and 11 a.m. respectively.
This change comes as a result of responses sent out in a student survey in the spring of 2018, created by Student Senate.
“This actually started with the previous vice president for academic affairs Michael Timberline and this became a project we felt very passionate about because students came to us saying they didn’t have a place early on to study on the weekends,” Brezka said.
Brezka said that according to 870 student responses on the survey, 37.6 percent of students said they would prefer the library remain open until 4 a.m. and 62.4 percent said they would prefer the earlier weekend hours.
“That was really a driving force behind this initiative, the fact that it was a student desire based on the survey,” Brezka said.
After Student Senate presented the proposal to provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, Walter Zakahi and executive director of the Cullom-Davis Library, Barbra Galik, the hours officially changed on Feb. 3.
“Personally, I did not see a need to change our hours,” Galik said. “We tracked the number of students who were waiting for the Library to open on weekends as well as the number of students in the Library 3 to 4 a.m. These statistics did not indicate that we needed to change our hours. However, this was a request of Student Government.”
Sophomore advertising major Andrew Sherrer agreed that the change was unnecessary.
“The hours changing is kinda silly because no one studies on weekend mornings,” Sherrer said.
The new hours are currently under a “trial period,” and could be subject to change if students aren’t utilizing the new hours.
“Although the survey results were not overwhelming in favor of changing the hours, there were enough responses in favor of the change that the hours were changed and I will be monitoring usage during those times,” Galik said.
Brezka said the key in making these hours permanent is to make sure students are aware that they’ve changed. “My committee will be hanging flyers around campus this weekend and we plan to have a table at the library to interact with our constituents more, what good are we to represent the students if they don’t know who we are?” Brezka said.
