The Senate’s 20 days and 20 nights of student feedback initiative resulted in the suggestion for all-night Union hours. Starting Wednesday, the Union will be open all night from Sunday to Thursday. This will continue through the regular semester, not just during finals and post-finals weeks. The GM and Senate responded to the overwhelming call for extended Union hours and went to administration in order to get the students what they’ve been wanting for a very long time.
President of the Union Ariana Twitchell said that she’s received some favorable responses from students when she told them about the extension. “It’s a really good way for the Senate and E-board to work together on projects that stemmed from students,” she commented.
When students were informed of the extension, the idea was met with mixed feelings.
“I’m against opening it up [for 24 a day] because of the increase in student activity fees [that it will cause],” said Shadeequa Miller, Union E-board representative.
“It depends on how much more we will be charged,” said Senior Nicola Jones.
Senior Ajeenah Mateen said, “I think we definitely need another place to study at night. The Union will give me more motivation [to study] because people are more alive here and it will keep me awake.”
Twitchell said that the purpose of the extended hours is more than simply to create a study area and a safe place to go hang out.
The E-board has also begun to look into a late dining option in the Union. Twitchell said that the first thing that usually comes to mind with studying is food so it would make perfect sense for facilities to be there to accommodate the students.
Richard Hartt, director of the Union, said that he has been looking into an option that would allow students to have 24-hour access to food facilities within the Union. While in France last summer Hartt saw a credit card ready vending machine that can dispense anything from toothpaste to a 2-litre bottle of soda. Hart added that it would accept MAD and/or RAD money.
Hartt said that ideally this would aid those students that are at RPI all year round, even when there were not any dining facilities available on campus.
But in the mean time a possible short-term fix is extending some of the food facilities so that they would stay open later than midnight, at least until 2 am, Hartt said.
Some logistics still need to be worked out, including the cleaning of the Union. Hartt suggested that some rooms might be closed off at different time intervals in order to aid the environmental service staff in completing their jobs.
