When UC started there had originally not been any classes on Wednesdays. As a result a culture has developed on our campus to party on Tuesday nights, as the next morning everybody was able to sleep in. To improve efficiency of the academic buildings and to reduce timeslot clashes for students, two years ago an extra slot for a course was added (so two timeslots were added) with the result that classes were then also taught on Wednesday from 10:00 to 12:00 and 13:00 to 15:00, taking into account the Tuesday party night culture. At the end of last year ASIC and the entire student population were surprised to hear of the decision that had been made a few months earlier by the college hall administration to move these Wednesday classes to the 8:45-10:45 and 11:00-13:00 timeslots. The argumentation of College Hall was based on providing ample time for excursions to take place outside of class hours, even though the amount of classes that actually have excursions is extremely limited and as such the amount of people benefiting from this measure is limited too. On the other hand, we as ASIC believe that partying is an intrinsic part of social life on campus, at least for a large group of people, which for a large part has revolved substantially around Tuesday nights, seeing as Friday nights many people abandon campus for activities other from campus life. We also believe that the desires of the many outway those of the few and we believe that many desire to party on Tuesday nights.

ASIC suggests moving Wednesday morning classes to the afternoon instead, starting from 13:45 onwards. That way those students that wish to party are able to sleep in a little and attend their Wednesday classes sober, while excursions can take place in the mornings, a win-win situation.

College Hall easily waves the we-want-to-party argument away on the basis of its airheadedness, but we sincerely feel that without proper means to also go crazy now and then UC life would become a lot more stressful, very possibly to the detriment of students’ academic performance. Furthermore, partying contributes to a social cohesion on campus. Friendships are formed which are carried on to the classroom, promoting the integration of other people’s ideas in one’s own and as such promoting the interdisciplinary nature of our campus.

College Hall also draws the resemblance to other universities who don’t have free mornings on Wednesdays and are doing just fine without. May we just point out we are not a normal university? We have obligatory attendance, our grades are on average are way higher than that of other universities and our social life is intricately interwoven in our education as we eat, sleep and live on campus. We are not a normal university and as such drawing this parallel is pointless.

Lastly, College Halls has recently brought forward the argument that the total amount of studying hours outside of class has been decreasing and that limiting the partying capabilities of students during the week would counter this decrease. This decline has for a large part happened over a period in which there were no Wednesday classes at all, this suggests that, at the start of UC, students apparently did study more (or says they did?) even though there were no Wednesday classes. Again College Hall puts forward a weak argument, as there is no clear evidence for a relation between the presence of party nights in the middle of the week and study behavior.

In the end it’s not a matter of life or death, but we see no harmful effects of moving the timeslots to the afternoon while we do see the very strong benefit of an important outlet to reduce stress in students and at the same time promoting social cohesion on campus.