Editorial: UK should leave dorms open during Thanksgiving break
Blazer Hall is one of four resident halls that remain open during the week of Thanksgiving break. Photo by Olivia Beach | Staff
November 21, 2017
For some students living the dorm life at UK, the end of November brings with it a rush to find somewhere to stay during Thanksgiving break. Fourteen of the school’s residence halls will close at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 22, and reopen at 12 p.m. on the following Sunday, Nov. 26.
Those living in the dorms for longer than a year may be used to this process by now, but what if there were an alternative?
Academic breaks give out-of-state and in-state students alike a chance to spend some time at home. Expensive travel arrangements or familial circumstances may keep some from getting this chance, however.
For those students, staying in Lexington can be an option, albeit one with some caveats if you live on campus. Only four of the residence halls will stay open for the week– Blazer Hall, the University Flats, the Wildcat Coal Lodge and Woodland Glen III.
Students staying in Lexington for the week rather than going home could stay in one of these dorms if they live in another hall until the others on campus reopen, but by this point in the semester most are already accustomed to their own rooms and would likely prefer to stay in them instead of borrowing an empty one.
The current structure also prevents members of the marching band and athletic programs at UK from staying in their dorm rooms for the break, requiring them to either find alternative housing arrangements for the week or otherwise having to stay in hotel rooms to stay in Lexington, provided by those programs.
Keeping the dorms open would allow residents to have this choice, as well as giving resident advisors in each dorm a chance to make some more money by staying to keep things up and running. Hiring temporary workers for the front desks and using UK Police Department to monitor campus could also help with this goal.
UK does currently offer some options to residential students in situations preventing them from going home, but ultimately the ideal solution for them would simply be to keep the dorms in operation during the break.
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