Tonight is “Grad Late Night” at Payne Whitney Gymnasium.

Starting this evening and continuing every Tuesday until Nov. 15, the gym will be open exclusively to graduate and professional students and their spouses between 10 p.m. and midnight. Those students will have access to the Israel Fitness Center as well as the volleyball, basketball and badminton courts, Lucas Thompson GRD ’13, chair of the Facilities and Healthcare committee in the Graduate Student Assembly, wrote in an email.

Unlike undergraduates, who can use their residential college gyms 24 hours a day, seven days a week, graduate and professional students are limited by the hours Payne Whitney is open, Thompson said. Because of this, graduate and professional students were “especially hard hit” when the gym reduced its hours due to budgetary constraints, he said.

“Grad Late Night” is designed to accommodate extra student demand for the gym as the cold weather sets in, Thompson added.

Funds to keep parts of the gym open were provided by the Graduate Student Assembly, the Graduate and Professional Student Senate and the McDougal Center.