Students living in the residence hall dormitories are gaining more visitation opportunities.

At the start of the spring semester the visitation hours in Blaine and McCormick Halls will be extended an extra hour.

Originally, the hours for these buildings ended at 11 p.m. during the weekdays and midnight on the weekend.

With constant requests coming from those residing in the dorms, students now have extra opportunities to entertain opposite sex acquaintances.

“Since I’ve been here, one complaint for Blaine and McCormick is the different visitation hours,” said Adam Griffin, director of housing. “We’ve always stuck with, when the office closes that’s when the visitation hours close, which worked well.”

However, the hour change is not yet permanent. The continuation of the hour extension depends on the behavior of the residents in Blaine and McCormick.

“It’s more of a trial semester,” said Josh Doak, resident director of Blaine Hall. “We just want to give it a try to see how different visitation hours work.”

While deciding how much of an hour extension would best fit the residence halls, the residence staff even looked at the visitation hours on other nearby campuses.

“We looked at some other universities around to see how ours related to theirs,” Griffin said.

Griffin said Southern’s visitation hours were shorter than those of other campuses due to the residence style.

“It’s the traditional housing where there’s just one room that houses double students,” Griffin said. “If it’s the single occupancy, you don’t have the same problems of your roommate’s boyfriend or roommate’s girlfriend.”

He said one of the main problems with having those of the opposite sex in the room at late hours is the other roommate not feeling comfortable changing and going to bed.

Some students said having a significant other in the room at late hours causes conflict depending on the relationship between the roommates.

“If you’re not close friends with your roommate, it could be a problem,” said Gabe McGrew, freshman kinesiology major.

“We will evaluate it at the end of this year if we see the visitation or co-habitation violations have went up since we changed this then we’ll change it back to the old hours,” Griffin said.

With the residence office closed, Griffin said it may not make much of a difference as to whether or not a student may try to take advantage of the hour readjustment.

“If they’re going to sneak somebody in, they don’t do it when the office is open, they wait until we’re closed anyways,” Griffin said.

“The hall person is still going to make rounds after the hours are closed.”

Some dorm residents said they are not at all affected by the hour changes, because visitation hours still put boundaries on their freedom.

“College students shouldn’t have a curfew outside of what their parents set for them,” McGrew said.

While an extended visitation hour may be welcoming to some students, others remain unaffected by it.

“It doesn’t really benefit me, because I don’t have anybody,” said Crystal Bush freshman biology major.

Students like Meredith Musso, junior elementary education major, said she can see how the new hour extension may cause problems.

“I don’t mind it during the weekend because most people go home, but it kind of worries me during the weekdays.”

Musso said for those like herself, there is the risk of taking late showers and running into male students in the halls.

“It’s okay, as long as they’re not loud,” said Micha Doubledee, sophomore biology major. “For some of us, we go to bed at eleven.”

J. Tittle, sophomore criminal justice major, said while having his own room eliminates the issue of roommate problems, there are other rules that could be reconsidered.

“The quiet hour after 8 p.m.: I think they should make that just a little bit later,” Tittle said.

Griffin said this one change in visitation hours does not definitely mean revising all of the other rules.

“We will evaluate it at the end of this year if we see the visitation or co-habitation violations have went up since we changed this then we’ll change it back to the old hours,” he said.