It was 1 AM on Thursday. Burned out from tedious summer homework, my friend and I realized that the only thing we really wanted was Uly’s. We reached the Uly’s corner and, to our despair, the cart was not there.
A few days later, this same friend and I got out of class at 4:00 and promptly decided we needed burgers. We head for the Joe’s Burger food cart next to the EMU, and of course, it closed at 4:00 in the afternoon. I wish I could say these were isolated events this summer, but the lack of late-night tacos and early-evening burgers is only one small part of a bigger issue: the university’s inaccessibility in the summer.
There are 9,355 students enrolled in at least one class this summer at the university. That’s almost 40% of the normal school year population. In addition to current students, thousands of incoming freshman are on campus for their orientation. Families and members of the public are on campus daily, on the memorial quad, in the library, in the gym. In spite of this, nearly everything on campus has reduced or non-existent accessibility to students.
Living in the dorms is still an option, but almost all of the on-campus dining is closed.
Dux Bistro and Carson Dining are open, but both are closed by 8:00 p.m. Carson Dining shuts down at 7:30, and is also closed during certain hours of the day, between 9:30 and 11:00 a.m., and 1:30 and 5:00 p.m. Though this doesn’t affect everyone, it’s extremely inconvenient for anyone who does eat on campus, and likes to have food in the evening. If you just don’t care about the cuts in on-campus dining hours, there are plenty more hour-reductions to get mad about.
Summer classes are often packed with readings and homework, and the library, with its four stories of quiet, air-conditioned beauty, should be the perfect place to spend those long homework-filled nights. The only issue? It’s only open until 9 p.m.
Students are forced to head back to their humid apartments, sit themselves in front of a fan, try and tune out their loud upstairs neighbors and attempt to focus on the work they’re supposed to have done by the next day. And yes, I’m speaking from personal experience.
Sometimes those condensed summer classes (and non-air-conditioned nights) leave you wanting to go and burn off some stress. Or maybe the summertime sun has motivated you to get to the gym and check out the fancy new renovation.
Well you can go ahead and head over to the Rec center—but only until 8 p.m. For those of us that don’t like to get up hours before our first class starts to go work out, this presents a major problem. Many students aren’t out of class until 4:00 or 6:00 in the afternoon. This hardly leaves any time to go home, change, maybe do a little homework, and get to the gym with enough time for a workout, before it closes.
Places like the gym and the library are essential to all aspects of student life. Academic success, health, happiness, these depend on having places like these, as well as a diversity of dining options.
Even though there are less students on the campus, that doesn’t mean that we suddenly run on new schedules. There are still times when I want to go to the gym at 7:30, and stay for an hour or more. I still want to work on my homework in the library until I’m done with it, not until I’m kicked out. The university has taken the absence of students to mean an absence of interest in campus facilities, and this is simply untrue.