For Edward Kehoe, living in Graves Hall, gave life to an idea.
"We are all adults--adults trying to expand our academic horizons," Kehoe said. "We feel like the time we spend with other students shouldn't be restricted to dorm hours."
Currently, the dorm-visitation hours are noon to midnight, seven days a week.
Kehoe and Simon Richardson, freshman in secondary education who is suitemates with Kehoe, are asking the University to extend visitation hours to 10 a.m. until 1 a.m. Monday through Thursday, and 10 a.m. until 2 a.m. Friday through Sunday.
"Originally, we were using (Facebook) to get a general consensus of all the students and how they feel on these current dorm hours," Kehoe said. "Therefore, what we said was, 'Hey guys, if we get 600 members, we are going to go ahead and take the time out of our day to get a petition started for you guys, so we have what's right.'"
The Facebook group has been available for almost two weeks and has more than 700 "attendees."
"It doesn't take much to get something going, but someone has to take the initiative, and no one has done it yet," Richardson said.
Kim Trupp, director of housing and resident life, said in the past there hasn't been a "groundswell" of interest by students in making any changes.
The hours have been in place for as long as Trupp can remember. She has been an employee of the University for 31 years and director of housing and resident life for eight.
However, before Kehoe and Richardson's involvement, Trupp said changing the visitation hours has been on the table for a while.
"We've been working on this since earlier last semester, and we are about to launch a survey that's going out to all residents," Trupp said.
The survey should be available by e-mail in the next week.
Kehoe said he believes an extra hour on weekdays will make a difference in studying and will give students enough time on the weekends to entertain co-ed dorm room company.
"The noon-to-midnight hours have been in place basically because that's when we used to have desk operations," Trupp said.
Trupp, who came to Auburn as a student in 1976, said the dorm hours were different than they are today.
"Actually when I was in school here the hours were more expanded--just on the weekends," Trupp said. "(Visitation) started at 10 a.m. and went until 2 a.m. It was even a little more expanded then."
Other SEC schools currently have visitation hours later than Auburn's.
"It's a matter of convenience," Richardson said. "The library is far away from some people--living in the hill is a 20-minute walk. If it's hot or super cold, no one wants to deal with that."
Trupp encouraged Kehoe to get those "attending" his Facebook group to participate in the survey.
"What I said to Edward is, 'Lets let the survey run its course,'" Trupp said. "I told him I'd be glad to speak with him, but we've got the survey already in motion."
Kehoe argued students want to be free of the confining hours.
"We are being very careful here not extend the hours to a point where temptation might occur," Kehoe said. "By extending these hours, we hope that students treat these hours as adults."
Kehoe said he wasn't aware his schedule would be so drastically altered.
"It was just time to take a look at it, independent of the students asking for it," Trupp said. "A petition with signatures doesn't give us specific information that a survey will. Obviously (Edward) wanted to go about it in the right way, and I appreciate that."
Once the information from the survey is sorted through, the proposal to change the hours would have to be considered in the long term, to make sure the changes would be what students a few years from now would also want.
"Ultimately we wish to see more opportunity to expand and develop our study skills and social skills," Kehoe said. "But the current Auburn dormitory hours are holding us back."
The changes the University would be able to give the students are undetermined.
"I would not want to say if the students want this we would be able to deliver it for them because it has to go through a series of discussions," Trupp said. "Until we see what comes back and what (students) are asking for, its hard to answer."
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