The Student Government Association approved three bills Thursday night to extend hours at Tiger Dining facilities and the Student Recreation and Fitness Center and turn the first floor of the Ned. R. McWherter Library into a place for around-the-clock study sessions.
If University of Memphis administration decides to implement SGA's resolutions, the library and Rec Center will extend hours beginning in the spring. Dinning services has already started to extend hours with the announcement of Einstein Bro's and the University Center Food Court closing one hour later Monday through Thursday.
The first floor of the library has been accessible to students all day and all night before.
Sylverna Ford, dean of university libraries, said the library was previously open 24/7 when the old University Center was torn down and the new UC was being built.
"The library had never been open around-the-clock prior to that time," Ford said. "The intent was when the UC opened the 24/7 space would be in the UC."
The Technology Hub in the UC now serves as the 24-hour facility for students.
The library is open at all hours during exam week. Ford said the library keeps statistics on usage during those weeks to track if a 24/7 library is necessary.
"The head count is usually three to four, sometimes 10 to 20, but the usage hasn't indicated that the usage is needed," she said.
Concerned about safety, Ford said the library would have to hire extra security guards and library personnel if their hours were extended.
"There are so many nooks and crannies that could create an unsafe environment if someone came in determined to cause trouble," she said.
With year-round, full-time employees making $50,000 a year plus benefits, the costs would add up.
When a fellow senator questioned Addison Piggott, the senator who sponsored the bill, as to where the money would come from, and if it would result in a tuition increase, Piggott was unsure, resulting in a lecture from SGA advisor and Dean of Students Stephen Petersen. Petersen told them at least 40 percent of spending on campus comes from students' tuition.
Ford suggested an all-hours study space be created in the UC since the building was created to be open 24/7.
"The Tech Hub is a good computer lab, but not a study area," Piggott said. "If someone needs to read or study, [the library] would best serve students doing projects that don't have computers."
In addition to extending the library's hours, the SGA bill proposed the Rec Center be open 30 minutes past its current 10:30 p.m. closing mark.
In a survey conducted about extending hours of the Rec Center, 364 out of 388 students who live on campus and took the survey, or 94 percent, said they would use a 24/7 on-campus recreational facility.
"We discussed [that] making it a 24-hour environment would be spending too much money without enough students coming in, so we compromised to do a more in-depth survey to see the usage and extend hours in the future," Piggot said.
Recreation and Intramural Services is looking at architectural firms to oversee a project that will include an evaluation of the Rec Center and focus groups with students to better improve the building and facility spaces.
"In surveys in past years we haven't seen a huge demand for later hours but we recognize that there are a few who would like that so we could at least add the 30 minutes," said Steve Whistler, assistant director of campus recreation and intramural services.
Whistler said he plans to compare the traffic of students coming in during extended hours to data he's collected in the past to get a better idea of how many students prefer later hours.
"We don't want to guarantee that we can go beyond [30 minutes], but we want to try if that's what students want," he said.
Extending hours by 30 minutes four days a week will increase Recreation and Intramural Services' budget by $3,400 in operational costs for an academic year.
The SGA bill also suggested that dining facilities on campus open an hour earlier and close an hour later on weekdays and stay open up to four hours later on the weekends.
The SGA set up tables in residence halls to survey students living on campus about dining facility hours, and Piggott proposed the bill after receiving negative feedback from those students, he said.
Out of the surveys filled out, results showed 53 percent of students were not satisfied with the Monday through Thursday hours and 75 percent are not satisfied with Friday through Sunday hours.
Piggott sat down with Daniel Armitage, assistant vice president of student affairs and campus services, to see what could be done to better-fit students' needs.
"We talked about whether it would be better to wait until next semester or now," Piggott said. "He advised me to put them in effect immediately to see how students will respond."
If there is positive student turnout, Tiger Dining plans to make the new hours a "more permanent solution," Piggott said.
