Tim Tai, Staff Photographer

The 24-hour model of Yale’s Humanities Quadrangle was short-lived.

While students could study in the space at any hour last fall, the York Street academic hub now shuts undergraduate students out at 9:15 p.m. on weeknights, causing some students to voice frustration. HQ opened its doors in Feb. 2021 and began classroom use at the start of the academic year. In the fall, the space was open for studying when Sterling and Bass Libraries, which close at 12 a.m. and 2 a.m. respectively, were not.

But this semester, undergraduates no longer have swipe access into the building after 9:15 p.m. on weekdays, and graduate students, faculty and staff only have access until midnight. This appears to be because of an oversight which mistakenly allowed HQ to be open 24 hours last semester. Kathryn Lofton, Faculty of Arts and Sciences dean of humanities, reported that the building was always intended to function as a classroom building and never meant to have 24-hour access. 

“In order to have 24-hour access, we’d need a designated nighttime security guard for that, which I don’t think we’d get approved since this building was not intended for 24-hour student use,” Lofton told the News.

Among undergraduates, this decision has seen a largely negative response. In the fall semester, many undergraduates came to see HQ as a favorite nighttime study spot due to its late night hours. Maria Giacoman ’25 told the News that she especially likes to go to HQ at night because studying in a classroom with friends allows the space to be both social and academic.

“The new hours are not effective and all they make you do is wait outside in the cold for someone to let you in,” she said. “There’s always someone in HQ and they will open the door for you.”

But João Bernardo Pacheco ’25 had a different way of looking at the hour changes. Pacheco goes to HQ every day, mostly at night time, and said that the new hour changes have thinned out the crowds that used to make it difficult to find a room late at night.

He, like Giacoman, said he is mostly unaffected by the new hours because there is always someone going out that will let him in. 

“It’s always empty, so I can always find a room, and I get in anyways,” Pacheco said. 

Not all graduate students are aware of the hour changes at HQ. Wenxing Wang GRD ’23, a first year in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, said that he was unaware that there had been any changes in hour operations in HQ for undergraduates. But he did note that this semester, he has had no difficulty finding a place to study in the building at night, in contrast with last semester. 

The Humanities Quadrangle is located at 320 York St.