Editor in Chief: Christy Kincade
News Editors: Michelle Rogerson & Carrie Michaud
Opinion Editor: Joshua Snow
Features Editor: Kim Cuneo
Community Editor: Stephanie Stevenson
Arts Editor: Tricia Wood
Sports Editor: Melissa Harris
Photo Editor: Amanda Elliott
Copy Editor: Julie Ecker
Web Editor: Jim Baker
Columnists: Spencer Baird & Lacy Hall
Advisor: Dr. Bill Ruehlmann

Everywhere you turn, students, professors and staff are griping about something. Whether it is the parking, the cafeteria food or the incessant smell around Village II, complaints are abundant on the Virginia Wesleyan campus.

Amidst all of the turmoil of our growing community is one more issue we would like to address, the hours of operation of campus offices. Not every office on this campus operates during the same hours, but a majority of the most important ones do not accommodate students very well.

For example - the mail room. It does not open until 9 a.m., and closes at 4 p.m. And you’d better believe that at four o’clock, they have shut the metal gate, locked up and gone home. This doesn’t leave any time for students who are in class until 4:15, or have off-campus internships or student teaching, to take care of any business they may have that resides behind that metal shutter. Then you must also consider the inconvenience of the hour and a half the employees take for lunch. It’s just one of the many hassles students as well as professors must plan their lives around.

The Scribner Bookstore and the Business office both run the same shift, however they do not close for the long lunch period. Students’ lives are hectic and unpredictable. They do not want to have to worry about racing out of class at 4:15 to get to the Registrar’s office to add or drop a class before it shuts its doors at 4:30.

Let’s not forget the hours that Health Services operates. If you are feeling ill Tuesday through Thursday, don’t expect to get immediate attention from medical professionals after 4 p.m. as well.

There are a number of students who have had personal experiences with the hours many offices uphold on this campus. For example, one student who had to mail very important letters to on-campus residents raced back from their off-campus job one day in order to get these already late messages into the mailboxes. Much to this person’s dismay, at precisely four o’clock, the iron curtain had been drawn the mail room was dark with no one to be found.

It is frustrating to be faced with such constricted times to get urgent matters taken care of. Not only do students have to stress about getting their work done for classes, which begin as early as 8 a.m., but they have to worry about paychecks, packages and books between the specific hours of 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. This is just one more extra burden put upon students that they do not need.

If this college is going to take on a corporate identity, maybe they should adopt more business-like hours to comply with their customers’ needs.