Kansas State students are one step closer to seeing expanded building hours at the Business Administration Building after the Student Governing Association unanimously passed a resolution recommending surplus funds from the per-credit-hour surcharge be used for the project.
Alec Hildreth, senior in marketing and senator for the College of Business Administration, said he and many other students found that the current Business Administration Building hours do not allow sufficient time to complete their studies and work, especially with the closing of Hale Library.
“Now, the Business Building is open until like 10, it’s not open on Sundays, and they close really early on Saturdays,” Hildreth said. “Me and a few others put this legislation together after Hale burned down and the west side of campus kind of got the short end of things in terms of study spaces.”
Rebecca Adams, professor of finance, said there has been talk of extending the hours to midnight or later, but the issue is still being discussed with administration. The biggest issue being considered, however, is funding for staff.
“We do have to have staff here while there are students in the building,” Adams said. “They looked at a couple of places where we have potential funding for that, and they are trying to negotiate that with our current administration to see if those fees could be used for staffing later.”
Hildreth said he came up with the resolution after learning that the college had extra funds.
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“I realized that the College of Business has a pretty large surplus of money that is traditionally used to hire and retain faculty,” Hildreth said. “And I recognized that to keep the Business Building open later, all we would need to do is hire a few student workers who would be willing to work those hours. So, the whole argument was that we could use that excess money to hire student workers to keep the Business Building open later.”
Many business students were eager to hear about the possibility for more open hours at the Business Building, as it has become a prime study spot Hale Library’s temporary closure, leaving study spaces rather scarce.
“The Business Building seems like a pretty popular place,” Jonathan Coleman, junior in entrepreneurship and marketing, said. “Whenever I go there to study, I see pretty much all the tables and study rooms filled.”
It’s so popular, study rooms can be nearly impossible to find during finals week, Hildreth said.
“The Business Building is completely full, and there is literally no where you can study,” Hildreth said. “The Engineering Building is on the complete other side of campus, and it has late study hours. I had conversations with students, talked in front of a few of my classes, and this was one of the main things students were kind of fired up about, the fact that we are paying extra for this nice building, but we can’t really utilize it late into the night.”
Hildreth said business students in particular have struggled to find study spaces in the building, which has been troubling. In any case, he said he thinks all students should be able to utilize the building, and extending the open hours would give them the opportunity to do so.
