By: Hannah Owens
As a student who has spent many late nights on campus juggling academics, work, and extracurricular commitments, I’ve come to realize just how essential access to university resources is after regular business hours. For me, the newsroom has often served as my sanctuary. During past semesters, I balanced a full-time job with a full course load. My days were jam-packed: classes in the morning, work until evening, and only then could I dedicate time to homework and newspaper production. I would often stay in the newsroom until 3 a.m., relying on the campus facilities to catch up on the countless responsibilities I could not address during the day.
However, this semester, the rules changed—and not for the better. Cameron University’s Office of Public Safety began enforcing an unofficial policy that prohibits students from being alone in campus facilities after 5 p.m., citing safety concerns. While the official published policy states that students and Registered Student Organizations (RSOs) may not use classrooms or other indoor spaces after 10 p.m. without authorization, the stricter 5 p.m. enforcement is both arbitrary and detrimental.
Signs outside the music and art buildings warn students against being alone after 5 p.m., but those signs are not policy. Their presence has limited access to crucial resources for music, art, and theater students for at least a year and a half, long before I noticed how the policy would suddenly impact my department.
For students like me, whose work requires access to advanced tools such as Adobe programs or high-performance computers, the alternatives offered are woefully inadequate. The Digital Media Lab in the library, one suggested solution, has only three computers for digital media students to share, and these machines are underpowered for large projects. When I had to edit a film project with gigabytes of footage, I couldn’t do it in the library. This left me scrambling to meet deadlines and significantly hindered my ability to produce quality work. This gave me extremely limited time to edit this huge project and I have had my resources ripped away in a great time of need. Arguably, a great time of need for these resources is 24/7.
Music, theater, and art students face even greater challenges. A music major practicing the trumpet in their apartment is likely to be evicted; singers are told to purchase mufflers that cost upwards of $50 to continue their education. Art students cannot feasibly transport large canvases or sculptures between their homes and campus. Theater students, often rehearsing until 10 p.m., find themselves with no space to practice their lines or blocking afterward.
Music major Grace Norbury shared her perspective, highlighting the challenges she has faced.
“A lot of professors will tell us to do is practice like you are performing,” Norbury said. “And whenever you can’t do that in the practice rooms, you’re kind of hindering your education and hindering yourself.”
The broader implications are troubling. Cameron University markets itself as a place for nontraditional and low-income students — students who often juggle work, family, and other commitments. These are precisely the students who need access to campus resources outside of the traditional 9-to-5 window. Yet, instead of accommodating them, the university is shutting them out.
Even commuter students like senior English major Ryn Swinson are affected. Without access to buildings in the evenings, she has been forced to sit in her car or wander campus between events. On Fridays and Saturdays, when the library closes at 6 p.m., she is left without a “third place” to spend time—a problem that underscores the declining accessibility of public spaces in general.
“So as a commuter, you’re not really given another place to go besides your car and your classes and then whatever facilities are open at the time,” Swinson said.
The university’s reasoning for the policy—that student safety must come first—is insufficient. Students are adults who understand the risks of being alone on campus. If safety is truly the concern, why are faculty and staff allowed to work alone in the same buildings after hours? Public safety officers could focus on conducting sweeps to ensure safety, not removing students from instructional spaces. Another solution would be to hire additional staff for this very purpose. Additional lighting and security cameras, which students have suggested, could also address safety concerns without barring access.
An anonymous art student, who primarily works with drawing and graphic design (more portable and less hazardous media), voiced support for the policy while highlighting its complexities. They pointed out that while their work poses minimal risk, other mediums, like sculpting or those involving sharp tools and heavy lifting, can be potentially harmful.
The lack of access is not just an inconvenience—it undermines students’ education. Cameron University should look to institutions like the University of Oklahoma, where students have 24/7 access to computer labs and other department specific facilities. Implementing more card-swipe systems for secure, after-hours access could strike a balance between safety and resource availability.
I’m not here to disparage Public Safety or the university administration. My goal is to amplify students’ voices on a topic that directly impacts their academic success. As it stands, the after-hours policy is being dictated without meaningful input from the very students it affects. Cameron can and must do better to support its student body—especially those who rely on campus resources to succeed.
Until then, the question remains: How can Cameron truly serve its students if it locks them out when they need the university most?