Editorial
Arizona Daily Wildcat
January 30, 1998

It's about time

It's 10:45 p.m.

You've been working or studying or researching and you've got a big paper due in a couple of days. You don't own a computer.

The university has been good enough to provide open access sites for students to take care of all their computing needs. In the information age, that is an imperative. However, despite editorials from the Arizona Daily Wildcat over the past few years, these labs continue to carry one important liability: They close.

It's nearly 11 p.m. The labs are closed.

"Those who need to burn the midnight oil in the computer lab will not find the midnight movie very comforting," we wrote Dec. 4, 1996.

A year later it appears that Associated Students President Gilbert Davidson and the student senate have gotten on the bandwagon.

ASUA is currently in negotiations to launch a 24-hour computer lab, Sen. Mary Peterson told the Wildcat. She said the administration is looking for a test site.

Progress on this issue has been too long in coming. Other, similar universities offer at least some 24-hour computing centers and it is time the University of Arizona followed suit.

Davidson said 24-hour labs would help students with day jobs. He's right. It is exactly these students, committed to working their way through school, that the university ought to help. A 24-hour lab would allow those students more freedom to develop the right schedule to succeed.

When, as a community, we discuss student life, we can get lost in big concepts and projects, Integrated Instructional Facilities and the like.

It is important to keep in mind the little inconveniences and conveniences that help or prevent students make the most of their time and their tuition.