With students jockeying busy daytime schedules to find even aspare hour between classes, labs, appointments, meetings and work,the essential study time gets allotted to the wee hours of thenight.
As college students, studying late into the night may benecessary due to unusually heavy coursework and the desire to excelin or even pass a class. Sometimes late-night studying is due tosevere procrastination.
Whatever the reason, studying late at night can prove to bedifficult for a variety of reasons. Most college students live indorms or residence halls, which can prove to be too noisy ordistracting of an environment in which to study. Or, the studentmay have an early-to-bed roommate for whom studying inside the roomhinders his/her sleep.
This is why many students at most universities prefer to find astudy environment outside their living space, and the schoollibrary is a popular choice. Here at SMU, one can readily find anout-of-the-way niche in which to study disturbance-free during thehours of the day and night.
However, the student again runs into another obstacle whenstudying at the library. Out of the six main libraries here at SMU,none follow the same time schedule. With the exception of FondrenCentral Library, all the other libraries close at or beforemidnight. Even though Fondren is open until 2 a.m. on most nights,it would prove to be a better policy to have at least this libraryopen to all SMU students 24 hours a day. This would not necessarilyinvolve keeping someone at the circulation desk to check out bookslate at night but rather to provide students a place in which tostudy when necessary.
SMU could greatly benefit from such a policy of promotingacademics and studying, not to mention being a cost effectiveaction. Keeping the building open an additional six or seven hourswould involve only security personnel and electricity costs, asmall price to pay to have a more academic environment.
After all, if SMU is aspiring to become a benchmark school, moreemphasis should be placed on such things as promoting accessiblestudy environments instead of, for example, a $25 million workoutfacility.
