Art building shortens hours

Students are fuming about a recent change to the art building’s open hours.

Because of a change to security guards’ schedules, UNMPD Lt. Robert Haarhues said the building will now close at 10 p.m. instead of 11 p.m. He said security guards used to leave at 12 a.m. but will now leave at 11 p.m.

“The problem is that we’re down three security guards,” he said. “We no longer have the manpower, and UNM’s on hiring freeze. We’re not hiring any more people to replace them. We can’t be everywhere.”
Angelina Skonieczka, administrative assistant for the Department of Art and Art History, said her department had no say in the open-hours policy.

“I’m sure students will be upset by not being able to work as long, but unfortunately we don’t have much control over that,” she said. “If we want our building opened and closed, we have to go by what they tell us.”

Student Kira Vanderkolk, who uses studio space at night, said limited hours make it difficult to complete projects.

“The thing about an art major is that you can’t do it all at home,” she said. “With oil painting, unless you have ventilation you can’t do that at home. It puts on a time constraint that a lot of other majors don’t necessarily have.”

Student Liz Olive said the change is detrimental to students in metalworking classes. During the day, she said, classes occupy the lab space, and the open hours are limited. The work cannot be done at home.

“It’s a very time-consuming class, and when you go to lab, you have to be there for at least three hours in order to accomplish anything,” she said. “Taking an hour off of working in the small metals lab is like destroying your whole project.”

Haarhues said the police department hasn’t received complaints and expected the impact to be minimal.

“I haven’t heard anyone was upset about it,” he said. “That’s funny because there’s nobody in there when we close the building anyway.”
Rosemary Melendrez, the supervisor of security guards, said the art building was often shut down before closing time at 11 p.m.

“Sometimes their building is empty, so we lock it when it’s empty way before the time that she closes so we don’t have homeless people walking in there,” she said.