Res Life marks a new standard for weekday and weekend campus-wide quiet hours

By BROOKE PREAS

When beginning the school year at the University of Mary Washington, students living on campus can always expect one thing: residence hall meetings. These meeting are held to give the students opportunity to familiarize themselves with their Resident Assistants, neighbors and the rules of the hall. However, this year a big change was introduced at these meetings: the start of campus-wide quiet hours, a topic that used to be specific to each residence hall and decided on with voting.

Previously, students had a choice as to when quiet hours began on both weekdays and weekends. However, quiet hours now start at 10 p.m. campus-wide.

When asked why these new quiet hours were put into place, an Eagle Landing RA stated that they believe it was due to “the increase of noise violations campus wide” last year. They continued, saying, “I feel like it’s going to have more impact on the freshmen or non-apartment style halls. Apartments are always a little more problematic. Honestly, [Eagle Landing] has a problem with noise in general. People blaring bass at 1 a.m. and everything.”

While RAs are adapting to these new rules and figuring out the best ways to deal with the ongoing noise violations, students are learning how to live with these rules as well. Whether these rules were put into place to help eliminate noise complaints from the community or to give students a more pleasant on-campus living experience, students cannot seem to agree if these new quiet hours will have a positive affect or not.

When asked what he thought about the new quiet hours, sophomore computer science major Corey Staier said, “It doesn’t really affect me. If I have an issue with someone being too loud, I will just go ask them to be quiet. But if I have a late night study session or just want to get to get to bed a little earlier, it is very helpful.”

Senior biology major Morgan McMahon seems to believe that these new quiet hours will have a little more of a reverse effect on the school. “I think these new hours will probably not work out too well on the weekends. People may want to party a bit and be a little louder on Friday or Saturday nights. During weekdays, though, it will be nice for people who want to get work done,” McMahon said.

When asked if she thought that these new rules would work right away McMahon said, “Hopefully, because people should have respect for people who want to get work done, but they may not solve any noise issues right away because these hours have just been put into place, so people may forget the rules.”

More time may be needed for the effects of these new quiet hours to sink in, but throughout this transition period, residents are still asked to be respectful of their neighbors when it comes to noise.