It’s 1 a.m., your roommate is only on the second disc of his or her “Friends” season four box set and you’ve got an anatomy test in the morning. It’s just past midnight and you’ve got an uncontrollable urge for beef jerky. Where do you go?
In the past the answer would have been the Skutt Student Center, but due to budget cuts around campus the student center has changed its hours. Now it closes at midnight instead of 2 a.m. Sunday through Thursday.
The reason for the change is budget concerns across campus. In October of 2008 Creighton asked all parts of campus to reduce their budget by 10 percent or increase revenue.
“The initial time frame for the effective cuts to go into effect was Jan. 23, 2009,” said Rowland Hughes director of the Skutt Student Center.
“We didn’t have twelve months. Jan. 23 is halfway through the fiscal year. We were asked to cut 10 percent for half the fiscal year from our original budget.”
The student center is allotted a $1.7 million budget every fiscal year. The board of directors of the student center were expected to eliminate $170,000. Cutting hours was not the first step taken to eliminate costs.
“Most [of] our professional travel happens in the spring semester so we looked at that and we put a moratorium on all professional staff travel,” Hughes said.
“We have an account called budgeting and grounds, which is the money we spend on keeping the building up, and that took the primary hit on what’s to be reduced in the budget. We still hadn’t hit the amount we needed to so we had to look at the reduction of hours.”
After 11 p.m. students have to use their ID card to gain access to the student center and on average 12 to 18 students came in between midnight and 2 a.m. according to Hughes. Jack and Ed’s, the only food retailer open that late, made an average of $15 per hour.
“That barely covers staffing,” said Hughes. “They didn’t even break even.”
The cut in hours will also save in utilities and staff and overtime spending.
“We have one and a half staffing positions open and since we were open until 2 a.m. we had a staff member that worked the graveyard shift. Now with the new hours we can take that staff member and use him to fill the void we have during the day. It all sort of works together to save a lot of money.”
Students were split on their reactions to the change. Arts & Sciences sophomore Trent Powell was unaware of the change.
“There are new hours?” he said. “I honestly didn’t know.”
He generally uses the student center for dinner and didn’t see the change affecting him at all. Other students saw it as a major inconvenience.
“I’m pissed,” said Arts & Science freshman Jane Thomas. “I usually study from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. in the Skutt. There’s nowhere to go now.”
“As director of the facility this was not an easy decision. We understand the need for late-night study locations and non-study activity,” Hughes said.
“Some of the students who came in weren’t always necessarily here to study. They might be here to play pool, watch TV, use the restrooms, etc. It really was a difficult decision to make.”
The change in hours is not intended to be permanent.
“We’re considering this a temporary spring semester action. We’re hoping that in the fall semester we’ll be able to pull it back and reopen it again for those two hours.”