Have you ever been wide awake on caffeine and Jumbo Express candy at 3 a.m. in the Hirsh Reading Room, hard at work on a paper or studying for a test, only to find the security guard leaning over your shoulder telling you its time to pack up and leave? Have you ever - dare I say it - had the urge or even the need to do some work on a Friday or a Saturday night and arrived at Tisch Library only to find it closed at 9pm?
Or have you ever been so inspired by a book or so moved by a topic about which you were writing that you were in the mood to stay up until daylight studying it?
If you can answer "yes" to any of these, then chances are at some point you've realized that Tufts doesn't provide you with a comfortable, well-lit space to study late at night or on the weekend, other than during reading period.
Could this mean that Tufts University believes that students only study past 3 am during two weeks of the year? And what about right now? Apparently, not a single one of us needs a quiet place to read past midnight until February 10th - the academic turning point in the spring semester for all undergraduates, when all of our workloads increase so significantly that we finally need those extra three hours.
Need I go on? So here's what needs to happen: the Hirsh Reading Room must be open twenty-four hours a day from Sunday to Thursday. On Fridays and Saturdays, the main collection and Hirsh Reading Room must stay open until midnight.
We begin by looking at two of our "cohort" schools, as University jargon goes, for an illustration of appropriate late-night study options.
First, we'll take Georgetown University. At Georgetown, the main collection of Lauinger Memorial Library stays open until midnight, like Tufts. However, the Pierce Reading Room, which, for those of you who have been to Georgetown, is much like Hirsh Reading Room, except slightly larger, stays open 24 hours a day from Monday to Friday and until 3 am on Saturday and Sunday.
A little bit closer to home is Williams College. At Williams, a visit to the college's website yields a listing of 11 different spaces on campus where students can study 24 hours a day, seven days a week! 11 places! And we don't have one!
Some of our "cohorts" clearly make study spaces more accessible at all times, so to remain competitive the same should happen at Tufts.
I'm sure at one point or another you've walked through the main lobby of Tisch and seen a tour guide presenting the library to a group of potential Tufts applicants. Perhaps for a moment you've even felt fleeting pride for the exceptional facility that is Tisch. Tours can often make or break a student's choice to apply to a school and the University is always searching for little bits of information to enhance a tour guide's presentation. What better way to show the University's commitment to academics than to state that the Hirsh Reading Room is always open during the week?
Those of you who frequent late-night study may be familiar with the different security guards who work at the entrance past midnight. As far as I can see, after 12:30 am, the security guard is the only employee remaining in Tisch.
Let's say that the University is concerned about finding a person to do security after 3 a.m. on a regular basis. Here's a solution, one that our friends at Georgetown figured out. Ever noticed the little beige magnetic card reader at your right as you enter Tisch library? If finding security guards to work until the early hours of the morning proves difficult, or if the University can't find the money to pay for them, why not install a functional card reader, such that in order to enter the reading room past 3 a.m., a Tufts student simply swipes his card, much like entering an ATM booth? I'm sure that in the long run it would be less expensive than paying for security guards.
When all is said and done, we pay our tuition to receive a world-class education. Thankfully, Tufts provides us with just that. A substantial part of our education comes through enough reading and writing thrown our way to keep us thinking and working all the time, if we so desire. Tufts doesn't provide us with the necessary academic space to study comfortably at all times.
Before I forget, for lack of a better space in which to work, much of this Viewpoint was written early Wednesday morning in a study room on the third floor of Houston Hall; a converted single room which, with three people in it, according to one of the two other students studying there with me, "bears striking resemblance to a forced triple in Alcatraz." And I doubt he's the first to think that.
You get the point. It's about time that Tufts opens academic spaces to study at all hours. Keep the Hirsh Reading Room open 24 hours Sunday to Thursday and the main collection open until midnight on Friday and Saturday. Please.
