IUSA proposal serves students

The IU Student Association deserves credit for attacking an issue on campus that really affects student welfare and happiness: early-morning construction noise. Amid proposals about adding more pencil sharpeners and clocks to campus, IUSA's effort to keep construction noise from starting before 8 a.m. deserves students' support and the administration's response.\nStudents in residence halls and students who live in nearby off-campus housing are now occasionally awakened by construction noise as early as 6:30 a.m. Bloomington has an ordinance that prevents construction from beginning before 8 a.m., but IU is exempt because it is state property.\nAn extra hour and a half of work time probably won't make much difference in how quickly any of the many construction projects on campus get finished. But an extra hour and a half of peaceful sleep makes a big difference to students, especially those who are awake late at night studying or who don't have class until mid-morning or even early afternoon. Rested students will perform better on tests and in classroom discussions, so facilitating student sleep is facilitating students' learning.\nCritics of the bill might claim it is unreasonable to restrict construction time to suit students' "lazy" habits. Construction workers need every daylight hour to get these projects finished in a reasonable amount of time and to earn the overtime they need to feed their families. The shortening of the work day, or starting it and ending it later, should have little if any significant impact on construction schedules.\n"The University has to realize students should come first," said Marc Kelly, a senior and IUSA off-campus senator. This gets to the heart of the bill: Students should come before the physical maintenance and expansion of campus buildings, sidewalks and other facilities. \nIUSA is sending its proposal to the administration, and the next step in enacting the resolution is gaining student support to lobby the administration for change. The goal is to work with the administration, but to get its attention, IUSA needs students to show their support for the bill. Help preserve the quiet sleep of fellow and future students by backing IUSA's work on this issue.