The Facts: N.C. State is the last university in the UNC System to start using a 24-hour visitation policy in their residence halls. Other universities in the UNC System utilize 24-hour visitation into their residence hall life in various ways.
Our Opinion: While Inter-Residence Council is take a positive step forward in extending 24-hour visitation to more residence halls, they should continue to work toward catching up with their UNC System counterparts.
Currently, eight of the on-campus residence halls have 24-hour visitation. Starting in the fall, five more will be added to this list: Berry Hall, Becton Hall, Bagwell Hall, Carroll Hall and Wood Hall.
Inter-Residence Council conducted a survey in residence halls which yielded results regarding student’s opinion on the 24-hour visitation policy. 90 percent of on-campus residents without 24-hour visitation said they would be in favor of having it in their own dorm.
While IRC is taking a good step forward by giving more residence halls 24-hour visitation, we are way behind our counterparts in the UNC System. N.C. State is the last University in the UNC System to add a 24-hour visitation policy to several of their residence halls.
N.C. State held a trial run of 24-hour visitation last fall in three residence halls: Bragaw Hall, Turlington Hall, and North Hall. UNC-Chapel Hill held a similar 24-hour visitation trial run. However, the difference was that UNC-Chapel Hill ran this trial in 1993. All but seven residence halls at UNC-Chapel Hill now have 24-hour visitation.
UNC-Wilmington currently employs a policy in which there are restricted visitation hours for the first two weeks of the semester. After that, students can vote on whether or not they want the hours in their residence hall extended.
Appalachian State University employed a similar method when it came to deciding visitation for their students. 95 percent of their on-campus residents voted on their current visitation policy. 93 percent of the residents that voted opted for 24-hour visitation.
East Carolina University does something entirely different. ECU has restricted visitation hours for the actual rooms in the residence halls. However, each hall has a 24-hour area in which visitation is allowed at any time. Most of these spaces are the lobby areas.
Western Carolina University’s residence halls have restricted hours for members of the opposite gender. Members of the same gender are allowed 24-hour visitation.
No one of these uses of the 24-hour visitation policy are better than another. However, IRC should work toward creating a visitation policy at N.C. State that is equivalent to the other schools in the UNC System while also taking into account students’ wishes.
The current residence halls without 24-hour visitation do not enforce visiting hours anyway, and so students often do not follow visitation rules. IRC should take that as a clue to what students really want.
Regardless of what the visitation policy in your residence hall says, you should always discuss visitation during the creation of your roommate agreement and always tell your roommate about guests.
