College steps back from 8am lectures

Last Wednesday saw the first meeting of the committee in charge of discussing the possibility of changing college hours. Members of the committee, a mix of representatives for students, staff and Imperial College had the opportunity to begin debating the feasibility of changing college hours and possible solutions.

The general consensus, according to Alex Dahinten, Deputy President (Education), seemed to be that extending hours from 8am to 7pm was unreasonable for both students and staff. Instead the committee, chaired by the Business School’s Deputy Principal Professor Dorothy Griffiths, deemed the idea of shortening the daily 2-hour lunch break enjoyed by most students as a more suitable plan, which would also be much more acceptable to the majority of students as Alex Dahinten said discussions he had prior to the meeting with students and reps suggested that this was the only option students would consider. However, this being only the first meeting of many, specifics of how lunchtimes could be restructured were not discussed, but would be the focus of upcoming meetings. Alex Dahinten thought that it “was a very constructive first meeting” and stressed that “any solution would need to guarantee two things: That every day students were guaranteed a min. of 1hr lunch break and 2) that the breadth, quality and availability of humanities is restricted in no way.”