Should our gate still be shut at 10 pm?

 

In 2021, QEHP reported that the management of Queen Elizabeth II Hall had adopted shutting the gates at 10 pm as one of the measures to curb the spread of the ravaging Covid-19 pandemic at the time. Now in 2023, this time is still in place even after the pandemic phase has seemingly ended. 

Several evenings, some minutes before or after 10 pm, Queenites are seen running towards the gate to avoid being locked outside. Several times, Queenites return from fellowships, or other events and have to wait outside knocking on the gates before getting a response from the porters. The early call has not only affected students but even porters as well. It is not easy to keep stepping out of the porter's lodge every ten to fifteen minutes to open the doors for Queenites who could not meet up with the time to be indoors. 

Before the establishment of this rule, the gates were usually shut at midnight; a time considered fair for all students who because of one thing or the other have to stay out late. While shutting the gate at 10 pm for Covid-19 fears was not fully understood, leaving this as the status quo post-Covid era is even more difficult to understand. Shutting the gate at 10 pm has proven inconvenient because of the following factors:

Fellowships

Many fellowships finish their services at late hours because their services begin after lecture hours have ended. Many mid-week services begin at 6 to 7 pm and end past 9 pm. Where students had the leisure of walking to their hostel from the different and sometimes distant locations of their fellowships in the past, they have to run to beat the 10 pm benchmark now.

TDBs

TDB, the acronym for Till-Day-Break, which is night reading, involves students reading all night long and this practice is more prevalent during examination periods. Students are fond of leaving their hostels and going to their departments or other lecture theatres to read. Currently, any Queenite interested in having a TDB study session outside of the hall must leave before 10 pm. Some days ago, a student had just returned from someplace some minutes before 10 pm; because she had a night tutorial session, though starting at 12, she had to rush back out because the gates were going to be locked at 10 pm. By the time she will get to the gate, it was locked already. After much knocking and pleading, the gate was opened again and she was allowed to step out. We can assume that many students have had to face this at one point or the other and to be fair, it must be tiring for both parties (students and porters).

Unavoidable lateness

It is possible that some students had made a distant journey and for many reasons including uncontrollable circumstances, could not help but reach the gate of the hostel at past 10 pm. This student is left with no choice but to stand and wait, after a long and tiring journey, for a response from the porters on duty that have retired for the night.

Other businesses:

Considering the time we are in the semester, in the next couple of weeks, departments and faculties will have their dinners. The days of these dinners will mean more Queenites having to wait outside. Dinners usually end late and again, it will not take just five minutes to return to the hostels because the night period are not hours transport vehicles move around. 

Not every situation or reason can be explained and it is quite unsettling to think that any Queenite who for a reason or two stayed out much later than 10 pm might have to find another place to spend the night to save herself from embarrassment and the porters from unnecessary stress. Surely, a review of this policy can be made to ease the discomfort Queenites experience daily.