Opinion: Our Library Closes Too Early

Jordan Shelton-Greene

As part of its five-year trajectory plan for school growth, Southwestern has started a health initiative to help students make better, healthier decisions. The most recent implementation of this initiative is making sure that all campus services are closed by 10:30 p.m. This is a very sensible idea, as it encourages students to get a good night’s rest. There is, however, one service that this initiative stifles and is a great hindrance to the student body: the library.

The Chan Shun Centennial Library is the one place on campus virtually free of noise and distraction. Students are able to go and study in a quiet, stress-free environment, with knowledge all around them if they need it. The library is also a great place of students to get together and study, adding their varied perspectives and knowledge to help increase learning. It is quite literally the central hub of the Southwestern student body, and their opportunity to use it is greatly diminished when its hours of use are cut short.

The school’s new health initiative is a huge step in the right direction. It shows the administration’s dedication to do its part in helping students. Many of the events affected by the new 10:30 rule make perfect sense: SA events, sports, the Student Center, and any other recreational activities. But the library does not fall into the same category as these things. Its primary function is to be a place for progress, not for pleasure, work instead of play. To shorten the library’s hours is to cut a student’s opportunity to study and learn in a place that is unique to any other on campus.

Southwestern Adventist University is very much like a family. However, it must be remembered that its “children” are young adults, capable of making their own decisions about what is best for them. A student who is in the library is there because they choose to be. One that is not there has made a choice not to do so. Closing the library early is not going to change either of their choices. It does, however, make the former’s ability to learn that much more difficult.

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