Up04 book

Mama’s Home After two decades working as a custodian at the Boca campus, Yolene Joseph still loves her job and the people she sees everyday.

Page 12

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TABLE OF CONTENTS September 27, 2016 | VOL.18 | #4

FEATURES Finding that Sweet Spot — if You’re Lucky With too few parking spots on campus, students are hard-pressed to find parking.

UP STAFF EDITOR IN CHIEF Ryan Lynch MANAGING EDITOR Andrew Fraieli CREATIVE DIRECTOR Ivan Benavides ASSISTANT CREATIVE DIRECTOR Celeste Andrews WEB EDITOR Richard Finkel PHOTO EDITOR Patrick Delaney COPY DESK CHIEF Carissa Noelle Giard ASSISTANT COPY DESK CHIEF Kerri-Marie Covington COPY EDITOR Natalie Tribbey SENIOR EDITOR Emily Bloch NEWS EDITOR Joe Pye SPORTS EDITOR Brendan Feeney FEATURES EDITOR Tucker Berardi OPINIONS EDITOR Miller Lepree CREATIVE JUICES EDITOR Sabrina Loftus CONTRIBUTORS

Craig Ries, Bilal Qureshi, Marina DeCicco, Brandon Harrington, Lee Pritz, Alexis Hayward, Kaylyn Koutz, Kaylalea Mendez

ADVISERS Neil Santaniello, Ilene Prusher, Michael Koretzky COVER PHOTO BY Patrick Delaney & Mohammed F. Emran

BY TUCKER BERARDI | PAGE 4

Yolene’s American Dream Student Union custodian Yolene Joseph has worked for the school for 21 years after emigrating from Haiti.

BY JOE PYE | PAGE 12

NEWS Losing Late-Night Lifters Students looking to work out after 10 p.m. are now out of luck.

BY RYAN LYNCH | PAGE 16

SPORTS Crossbar Castaway Redshirt senior Sydney Drinkwater has become a common sighting at FAU’s soccer field, missing only one game in her athletic career

BY BRENDAN FEENEY | PAGE 6

WANT TO JOIN THE UP? Email universitypress@gmail.com Staff meetings every Friday at 2 p.m.

Student Union, Room 214 WANT TO PLACE AN AD? Contact Jacquelyn Christie 888-897-7711 ext. 124 jchristie@mymediamate.com

CREATIVE JUICES The Media

BY BILAL QURESHI | PAGE 10

Dancing Devils

BY MARINA DECICCO | PAGE 10

PUBLISHER FAU Student Government The opinions expressed by the UP are not necessarily those of the student body, Student Government or FAU. ADDRESS 777 Glades Road Student Union, Room 214 Boca Raton, FL 33431 561.297.2960

9.27.2016 University Press 3

FEATURES

FINDING THAT SWEET SPOT IF YOU’RE LUCKY Students struggle to find parking with almost 27,000 more registered parking permits than on-campus parking spots.

By Tucker Berardi

There are 38,172 parking passes that have been issued so far this fall according to FAU’s Parking and Transportation Office. Photo by Craig Ries.

4 9.27.2016 University Press

M

any professors at Florida Atlantic include a course attendance grade to ensure students will arrive on time and won’t skip class. For some, however, the problem isn’t finding the will to go to class, but instead finding a parking spot before their time runs out.

This is in part because the number of registered parking permits is much larger than the number of parking spots on campus.

According to FAU Parking and Transportation Services Office Manager Tracey Hardy, there are 38,172 red, blue and green passes registered this fall and only 11,403 total parking spots, a difference of nearly 27,000.

Students like senior psychology major Luke Hendren are having to compensate for the lack of available spots.

“I have to go to campus 45-50 minutes before my sociology class at 1 p.m.,” Hendren said. “I hit all the parking spots and usually park near [Innovation Village Apartments], where I maybe find two spots.”

The senior said having to walk a half mile across campus just to go to class is not uncommon.

Parking spots quickly become a rare commodity at key points during the day, especially around noon.

Facebook user Elif Mcclean Ryan commented on a post about a student struggling to find parking and suggested staying “with a friend on campus the day before so your (sic) on time for the afternoon classes for the next day.” Ryan said she started putting this into practice after she arrived to class late and ended up being marked absent.

Another reason for the parking shortage may be the way classes are scheduled. According to Dennis Crudele, senior vice president of finance, campus traffic is much worse around noon, while early morning and late afternoon hours see noticeably less traffic.

“We’ve come to a point where we don’t have parking available at peak times,” Crudele told the Sun Sentinel last year. “There are spaces on the outside of campus, and we have shuttles, but being a commuter institution, we have a lot of people who come here who take one or two classes and need to go.”

Senior business major Dylan Anderson said, “Peak time has to be around 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. If I’m on campus before 11 I’m fine. But once 11 hits, finding parking becomes impossible.”

Kaitlin Caputo — a freshman international business major who lives in Parliament Hall — has the same attitude, saying she would prefer to drive to her classes on the other side of campus around lunch time.

“It’s not even worth it,” she said, stating she doubts she would find a parking spot in time, if at all.

On busier days, Anderson will stay near the entrance of the parking lot and wait for students to leave class, later following them to their cars in order to take their spots.

“Sometimes people get mad when I follow them, and I totally get it,” said Anderson. “But I still need a place to park, you know?”

One way the university is combatting this is by offering certain high-population classes as “lecture-capture courses.”

According to the FAU Office of Information and Technology, “Lecture capture is an umbrella term describing any technology that allows instructors to record what happens in their classrooms and make it available digitally.”

“It’s basically online class but you have to pay extra,” said Anderson, who is currently taking three lecture-capture courses. “You can go into class, but there are only so many seats. So most people stay at home and watch the recording. It’s convenient, but it costs like an extra hundred bucks.”

While more expensive, this lets students with long

commutes avoid having to drive to campus and subsequently find parking.

This semester, Parking and Transportation Services opened the red parking lots to everyone — regardless of their parking permit color — between the hours of 6 p.m. and 7 a.m. However, students with blue and green permits cannot park there during the day.

FAU parking offers a number of resources on its website that includes shuttle schedules, parking garage availability and Twitter updates. Although, these resources do not guarantee an open spot.

Parking Garage I is listed as full at 9:50 a.m. on a Tuesday. Photo by Craig Ries.

9.27.2016 University Press 5

SPORTS

CROSSBAR CASTAWAY Since transferring from USF, Sydney Drinkwater has become a fixture in between the goalposts at FAU.

By Brendan Feeney

Photo by Ryan Lynch.

6 9.27.2016 University Press

on the back line that she always has our back,” Burt said. “It’s just the confidence we have in her and the confidence she has in us, the back line.”

Now, early into her senior year, Drinkwater wants more. After improving in each of her previous seasons, she feels the team is ready to take its next step.

“I feel like we’re so much further ahead than we were last year when it comes to the talent we have and I’m really excited because I feel like this is the season we’re going to make it farther than we ever made it,” she said.

As this is her last season, Drinkwater wants to make it count.

“This is it,” she said. “Our coaches always say if everyone played like seniors we’d have a much better team and not until our first game against Florida Gulf Coast, it really hit me that this is what he really meant.”

The Owls last game of 2015 came against Rice University in the first round of the Conference USA tournament. They lost 2-1.

“I thought last year we could’ve gotten a ring and last year we definitely had the talent for it,” Drinkwater said. “So going to this season, it made it more motivating during this summer to come back more prepared and more ready than ever.”

Drinkwater used that motivation to make sure she was fully prepared for her last ride.

Her trainer? None other than her father.

“He really gets me prepared and he’s the one that wakes me up and makes sure I go and do everything.

He’ll run with me when I do long distance runs … it’s wonderful,” she said. “He’s like my own little personal trainer.”

“Without him I honestly wouldn’t have made it this far because he’s the one that motivates me and pushes me to become a better soccer player and a better person and it is really cool to have him out there with me because I look around at all my friends and a lot of them don’t have that.”

Drinkwater continued to say that the offseason is the most challenging — not because of the workload, but because of the lack of any immediate reward.

“When you get to play the whole season and get to go to conference and stuff, then all that hard work you did in the offseason is all worth it ... you get to go and show off all your hard work that you did,” she said. “Basically that’s your reward for everything you’ve done.”

Photo by Brendan Feeney.

S

ydney Drinkwater and her designated No. 27 goalie jersey have become a mainstay inside of the 24-foot-by-8-foot cage better known as Florida Atlantic’s home field soccer nets.

Since transferring from the University of South Florida, the redshirt senior has played every second of all 43 games from the start of the 2014 season up until her red card earlier this season against Jacksonville University.

While Jacksonville marked the first time Drinkwater didn’t start a game at FAU, where she played 3,866 minutes in her first two seasons, the sidelines aren’t necessarily uncharted waters for the left-footed goalie.

She spent her freshman year at USF sitting on the sidelines for all but 85 minutes during the season.

“She’s kind of a castaway,” said Drinkwater’s head coach, Patrick Baker.

In her first season at FAU, the all-conference goalie dropped the opposing team’s goals per game average from 1.16 the year prior to her arrival to 0.98 in 2014 — the seventh best mark in program history.

“It was a great feeling and it was very rewarding to know that I could succeed here. It definitely gave me a huge confidence boost,” Drinkwater said. “It was just great knowing at the end of the day that [FAU] was the correct choice.”

The following year she built on that success and limited opponents to 0.73 goals per game — the second best in FAU history behind Megan Coyne’s 0.28 mark in 2005.

In that time, the Owls have improved their season-win total from five to seven and up to 12 last year. The last team to reach double-digit wins accomplished that feat in 2005.

Baker said, “To come in and be a leader, be an allconference player, and she just endeared herself to her teammates, I just can’t say enough about her.”

One specific teammate Drinkwater has connected with is her backup — redshirt sophomore Jennifer Ocampo. Baker said the two look like they’re “best buds” when they practice together.

“They don’t see it as a starter or a non-starter,” he said. “They’re just trying to push one another and it’s an awesome partnership they have … and Jenny’s been such a fan of Drink’s for so long.”

Ocampo called her older teammate a role model.

“I try to learn from her and she learns from me, we’re really each other’s biggest cheerleader,” Ocampo said. “She’s a pleasure to be a teammate with.”

Redshirt senior and Conference USA’s Preseason Co-Defensive Player of the Year Erica Burt feels the effects of Drinkwater’s presence in goal as much as anybody.

“Sydney’s just a big leader on the field, we know

“I wouldn’t trade [USF] for anything ... I’m happy that I transferred here, because here gave me a much better opportunity to succeed.”

- Sydney Drinkwater

9.27.2016 University Press 7

She’s still waiting for her opportunity to display her effors in a championship-like atmosphere.

She has been waiting since 2010 when she led Merritt Island High School to a state championship during her MVP season.

Once her high school career came to a close, Drinkwater’s quest extended by over a year when she had to stay on the bench.

“I wouldn’t trade [USF] for anything for what I walked away with and the lessons I learned, but I’m happy that I transferred and I’m happy that I transferred here because here gave me a much better opportunity to succeed,” Drinkwater said.

Baker is just as happy. He talked about last season’s game at Western Kentucky — which ended as a scoreless draw — and how it could have been a lot worse if it wasn’t for Drinkwater’s eight-save performance.

“There will be a game where she is going to get us a result,” he said. “There was last year at Western Kentucky.

We weren’t really good, but she was phenomenal and kept a clean sheet.”

The head coach continued to rave about his redshirt senior goalie and the aura that surrounds her.

When she came back from her onegame suspension, he said it was like putting on a favorite blanket: “You put it on, it’s comfortable, it’s cozy, it’s what we know.”

“[Sydney] Drinkwater came back into the fold and it’s just like your favorite blanket. You put it on, it’s comfortable, it’s cozy, it’s what we know.”

- Patrick Baker, head coach

8 9.27.2016 University Press

After leaving the University of South Florida without much playing time, Sydney Drinkwater has made a place for herself as the starting goalkeeper for the Owls. Photo by Ryan Lynch.

The Broken Deal that Turned Surreal When Sydney Drinkwater first started playing soccer, she never imagined herself in between the goalposts until her team’s goalie threatened to quit on the last day of a youth tournament.

“I was like, ‘You can’t quit, you’re our only goalie,’” Drinkwater said. “‘We’re not going to lose the last day of the tournament.’”

The Merritt Island, Florida native made a deal with her teammate, where she would play half the game in goal, just to prevent the incumbent from quitting.

The deal failed to make a difference.

“She quit and I was stuck being goalie, and that’s how it all began,” Drinkwater said. “I was the goalie ever since then.”

With one more season left with the Owls and four shutouts on the season, Sydney Drinkwater needs three more clean sheets to tie the all-time program record of 25.

Photo by Brandon Harrington.

9.27.2016 University Press 9

CREATIVE JUICES

Dancing Devils

By Marina DeCicco

I am easily convinced.

Vulnerable to my own wicked ways.

I am tricked into everything And believe anything I tell myself.

He loves me.

She hates me.

I am understandably mesmerized by the evil which takes place inside of my own mind.

I cast spells of hate upon myself, Like abracadabra and hocus pocus can take away the truth and all of its misery.

As if knowing you are loved and beautiful the way you are comes with more burden and pain than thinking you are ignorant to beauty.

My lips sync with the devils and dance in deceit And my thoughts become ballerinas whose shoes are laced with ribbons of poisonous mind games.

My hearing dims as my hands block my eyes from the light of the truth.

Everything becomes black but the lies never end.

I am deaf to love, Blind to beauty, Numb to the soft hands that hold me in light, The taste of what is right is bland, And I only smell the rotten stench of demons following me.

I become small and weak as the lies become large and strong.

But then something changes.

Suddenly, I taste something sweet.

It is faint, but it is there.

I begin to see white, slightly peeking through the blackness which has consumed me.

I begin to feel the outline of a hand where once I felt nothing at all.

The once rotten stench becomes somewhat tolerable and I hear far away sounds of heavenly music playing.

I am not as small as before, but I am becoming slightly larger.

One day I will be a Swan.

Small, But once provoked, I become strong.

10 9.27.2016 University Press

THE MEDI

By Bilal Qureshi

More powerful than any weapon The ability to control the minds of the youth With all these lies they spew.

It can demonize a religion With just a picture and the word “terrorist” With just a picture and the word “thug.”

A whole race is stereotyped So are we going to leave it a force of destruction Or change it into a force of compassion?

This is a calling to the human race We are alone the more we segregate.

IA

Illustration by Lee Pritz

9.27.2016 University Press 11

FEATURES

YOLENE’S AMERICAN DREAM After immigrating to America, Yolene Joseph found a home at the Boca campus as a custodian for the past 21 years.

By Joe Pye

Yolene Joseph, who started working at Florida Atlantic in 1995, cooks in her newly rennovated kitchen.

Photo by Brandon Harrington.

12 9.27.2016 University Press

W

hile walking through the Student Union on the Boca campus, you may see her cleaning the glass doors, the tables, the water fountains or maybe picking up the Snickers wrapper you just dropped on the floor — but odds are, she’s smiling while doing it.

This September marks the 21st year that Yolene Joseph has been a custodial employee at Florida Atlantic. Working on and off since 1995, she has developed a second family at her first job since coming to this country in 1992.

Joseph was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and moved to the Bahamas in 1984 to study cosmetology and start a family. After two years, she could not return home after the Haitian coup of 1991, but also could not stay in the Bahamas because of discriminatory laws passed by Bahamian Prime Minister Sir Lynden Pindling.

“My mom, dad and brother all died in the early 1990s,” said Joseph. “The military killed many Haitians during the Haitian coup d’etat of 1991.”

Her husband Martine Lasseur gave her his U.S. work visa, and she left for America with her oldest daughter Astride and son Awince, while also pregnant with her youngest daughter Ashley.

Their marriage did not last, and shortly after claiming residence in Miami, Florida, she was a single mother of three children without any work experience.

After moving to Pompano Beach in search of work to support her family, she took a job at the university.

“I love FAU. Sometimes you find a job that is your future, for me FAU was my future,” said Joseph. “It was my first time working in my life, before coming here I was a housewife.”

Originally working for an outsourced company in the library, she took care of custodial duties on every floor, but was unable to earn more than $5.50 an hour. Her hours were then cut even further, making her situation worse.

“I was only getting paid $173 every two weeks,” said Joseph. “It was a tough time for me, I didn’t have enough to pay my bills.”

The supervisor of the Student Union contacted her and offered her a position to work in the building full time in 1996.

“The Student Union looked so different back then, the cafeteria wasn’t there ... Outtakes was where the ping pong tables are,” she said. “All there was at FAU was land and trees.”

There was so much land and open space that Joseph learned how to drive at the Boca campus.

Working Monday through Friday from noon to 8 p.m., she keeps herself busy by making her rounds through the upstairs offices, the bathrooms, the Carole and Barry Kaye Performing Arts Auditorium,

Yolene Joseph, pictured at one of her regular stops within the Student Union, learned how to drive at FAU. Photo by Patrick Delaney. the Military and Veteran’s Affairs Office and the Live Oak Pavilion. While cleaning, she occasionally stops to talk with students she knows in the offices and clubs.

“I love my kids, I look forward to seeing them everyday,” said Joseph. “Everyone in the office tries to see me, because I am always here.”

Her “kids” are mainly the student employees working in the Student Union offices and groups like FAU’s chapter of Konbit Kreyol — an organization that was created in 1990 to educate the students about Haitian culture.

“Yolene is so wonderful, she’s very caring,” said Conserline Viccana, a senior health administration major and Konbit Kreyol member. “She always keeps up with us and asks how everything is going in our lives.”

Student Government Vice President Juliana Walters began noticing Joseph’s positive disposition and affection toward everyone in the office during her sophomore year in 2014.

“I started seeing her around when I was spending late nights in office,” Walters said. “She would come by and clean, always have a smile on her face and ask about my day. She was the positive, enlightening aspect of certain stressful days.”

When Walters became vice president, she had to move offices and was surprised by something Joseph did for her.

“When I went to set up my new VP office, there

“I love my kids, I look forward to seeing them everyday.

Everyone in the office tries to see me, because I am always here.”

- Yolene Joseph

9.27.2016 University Press 13

was some stuff in a box that I transferred over ...

She went to show me my office and how she put my pictures up for me,” Walters said. “It’s the little touches that people appreciate.”

Student Government invited Joseph to its annual banquet last semester and Walters was happy to see a familiar face when she was sworn into office.

“My favorite memory of Yolene at school, was seeing her at the SG banquet that I was sworn in at,” Walters said. “It’s kind of a revolving door in SG, with student advisers and staff. Seeing one person who was there from the start, who is happy to see me succeed is very comforting.”

Junior English major Coral Undzis was struggling to find her place at FAU when she first started working in the Student Union in the summer of 2015.

“When I first came here, I didn’t have a good experience dealing with different staff members and making connections,” Undzis, a work study student, said. “She was so friendly to me, it helped open me up to making more positive connections here. She kept checking on me and has always treated me like a friend. Once she has met you, she will never forget you.”

The custodial supervisor of the Student Union, Anthony Moschetti, has been working with Joseph since 2003. He evaluates his employees annually, and has to point out both their positive traits and the areas that could use improvement.

“She’s a good worker, she’s very dependable and good with people and the students,” said Moschetti.

“She may have a tendency to get away from her work, but she’s been here long enough, she knows what to do and all of her experience makes up for it.”

He said that he has always noticed her way with students and faculty members and that everyone sees her as a motherly figure.

“The students seem to confide in her, she listens to them and always has her ears open for them,” Moschetti said. “She’s just always been like this, you can’t change the stripes on a tiger.”

“She’s a good woman and she wouldn’t hurt a fly. I don’t think she has a bad bone in her body,” he said.

“The kids here have a lot of stress with their studies and she really goes out of her way to be there for them.”

Moschetti likes to keep a bond with his staff members and doesn’t want work with them to be strictly business. He has met her family, visited her home and he and his wife donate clothng for Joseph to send to her remaining family in Haiti.

Though Joseph earned her American citizenship three years ago, she still has many family members living in Haiti who struggle to survive with the harsh working conditions in the country.

14 9.27.2016 University Press

“I think life is hard in Haiti, because they don’t have much work there, they don’t have jobs. Kids finish school and have nothing to do,” said Joseph.

“Last week I sent money, for one of my brother’s kids. Three of them already have died, they don’t have much. They can’t find enough food to take care to live, I am so sorry for them.”

Joseph is proud of her American citizenship and hangs an American flag in front of her house. She loves the opportunities that she has been able to give to her children here in this country.

“I love to be American, people treat you nice, you come here people accept you, they give you the privilege to work here to support yourself and your family, it’s the best country,” said Joseph.

“This is my dream, that’s why I love America, if I was not here I would be someone else. My family

can become anything that we want and live the dream we want to,” she said.

Joseph’s oldest daughter Astride, 30, is studying education at FAU and wishes to be a teacher. Her son Awnice is working and is now 28, who she says is no longer a boy, but a man, and her youngest daughter Ashley, 23, is pursuing a career in law enforcement.

“I’ve worked so hard over 20 years because my husband left me and I wanted my kids to know they can become anything that they want to be,” said Joseph. “I don’t feel like I’m working for nothing, they need to go to school. I’ve worked so hard to give them the better life, I want to make that life for my kids.”

Yolene Joseph stands with her oldest daughter, Astride and her granddaughter, Michaela.

Photo by Brandon Harrington.

CAN HELP OTHERS YOUR BIKE MOVE FORWARD. YOUR DONATIONS TO GOODWILL HELP CAN HELP OTHERS FUND JOB PLACEMENT AND TRAINING FOR PEOPLE INFORWARD. YOUR COMMUNITY. MOVE YOUR BIKE YOUR DONATIONS TO GOODWILL HELP CAN HELP OTHERS FUND JOB PLACEMENT AND TRAINING FOR PEOPLE INFORWARD. YOUR COMMUNITY. MOVE ®

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NEWS

Photo by Alexis Hayward.

Photo by Patrick Delaney.

The Rec Center cuts its late hours after two years of being open until midnight and 1 a.m.

16 9.27.2016 University Press

Photo by Alexis Hayward.

By Ryan Lynch

U

niversity officials are now closing the Recreation and Fitness Center three hours earlier at night, ending a pilot program that let students work out as late as 1 a.m.

According to Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs Corey King, the late hours were a result of a Student Government-led initiative that the Office of Campus Recreation put in place during the 201415 school year.

Previously open from 6 a.m. to midnight during the week and until 1 a.m. on Saturdays, the gym now closes at 10 p.m. every night.

The push for the program came after thenStudent Government President Kathryn Edmunds spoke to several other student representatives at an American Student Government Association conference about a student request to change the hours.

Edmunds said, “There was a committee [members appointed by the Boca Raton governor position] that comes up with ideas and programs for the Boca Raton Campus Rec who was working on it.”

After testing the hours during the following fall and spring semesters, campus recreation officials decided that there was not enough demand for the extended hours.

“We evaluated our usage numbers and determined that decreasing hours provided the most efficient use of resources,” said Nick Lumpkin, the associate director of operations for Campus Recreation, in an email.

The numbers collected during the study showed that after 9 p.m., the number of people going into the gym decreased from August 2015 to May 6, 2016.

During that period, 23,755 entries were recorded at the gym from 8-9 p.m. Each hour after that, the number of people entering the Rec Center dropped, from 17,801 from 9-10 p.m. to 3,800 entries from 11 p.m. to midnight.

The numbers also show only 193 entries clocked at the gym from 12-1 a.m. during that nine-month period.

For the fiscal years 2015-16 to 2016-17, Campus Recreation lost some of the money in its budget, with its total funds dropping $69,253 to $1,603,076 according to the last two activity and service fee budgets.

Some students believe the change of hours has affected how crowded the gym is at other times.

Sophomore business management major Michael Proby, who usually tries to make it to the gym between 8 and 10 p.m., says there are more people than usual in the earlier hours.

“I can make it, it just makes me want to leave early and stuff because you wait too long and by the time you get on the court to play basketball, it’s almost

time to close,” he said. “I don’t like it, it closes too early. There’s too many people, you can’t hardly play how you want to and every machine is taken.

It’s not spaced out like it used to be.”

Sophomore international business major Danny Ramirez was drawn in by the more spacious gym during the late hours.

“I box, so the studio was free most of the time when you came late,” he said. “It was convenient to the consumer but I guess it makes sense for the workers who are also students. They need to shorten up the hours so they can make it to class and stuff.”

Ramirez, who goes to the Rec Center every day, says his workout schedule changed because of the change in hours.

“Now I try to go a lot earlier,” he said. “Usually I’d try to go around 8 or 9, even 10. Now I try to go [at] 6 or 5.”

Sophomore business management major Thomas Langan agreed with Ramirez, saying, “I’m more of a nightbird and I like to go to the gym much later because of my sleep schedule and how I work. It’s definitely something that’s a bit of an inconvenience that I’ve had to adjust to.”

Along with the adjusted hours, the gym is also enforcing a previous rule that does not allow gym bags within the workout area.

“We are working to enforce this policy to help increase the safety of our patrons and the security of their belongings,” Lumpkin said in an email.

“Students are encouraged to secure any items they bring with them in one of our free day-use lockers or may purchase a locker for the semester.”

In addition to the new gym hours, the Recreation and Fitness Center now enforces a no-gym-bag policy inside workout areas.

Photo by Kaylyn Koutz and Kaylalea Mendez

9.27.2016 University Press 17

Ramirez said before the rule was enforced, he would see students leave bags on the couches outside the weight room instead of in a locker.

“It was more convenient that way, and no one ever stole anything,” he said.

Proby said he wishes that the gym would change its hours of operation back to include the late hours, but thinks there is not much that can be done to change the policy.

“I came at 9 p.m. one time and they said they were closing. I thought that was only for that day but they said that those were the new hours. Guess I have to get used to it,” Proby said.

Cross-State Fitness Here’s how the 12 other state schools compare to Florida Atlantic’s Recreation and Fitness Center hours.

Florida Atlantic University: Open until 10 p.m. every day Florida International University: Open until 1 a.m. on weekdays, midnight on weekends University of Florida: Open until 1 a.m. on weekdays, 10 p.m. on weekends Florida Polytechnic University: Open until 10 p.m. every day University of Central Florida: Open until midnight on Sunday through Thursday, 10 p.m. on Friday and 9 p.m. on Saturday University of North Florida: Open until 8 p.m. on weekdays, 4 p.m. on weekends New College of Florida: Open until 8 p.m. on weekdays, 5 p.m. on weekends University of Miami: Open until 11 p.m on Monday through Thursday, 10 p.m. on Friday and 9 p.m. on weekends Florida State University: Open until 11 p.m. on Monday through Thursday, 10 p.m. on Friday and 9 p.m. on weekends Florida A&M University: Open until 8 p.m. on weekdays, closed on weekends University of West Florida: Open until 10 p.m. on Monday through Thursday, 7 p.m. on Friday and 6 p.m. on weekends Florida Gulf Coast University: Open until 8 p.m. on weekdays, 6 p.m. on weekends University of South Florida: Open until midnight on Monday through Thursday, 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 11 p.m. on Sunday

18 9.27.2016 University Press

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2015 Ad Council

9/24/1