To better fit the needs of sick students, the Ball State University health center will extend its weekly hours this year.
By cutting Saturday hours altogether and extending the weekly hours on Tuesday and Thursday until 6:30pm, students will be able to see a doctor without having to juggle an academic schedule, Dr. Kent Bullis, medical director, said.
"To a large degree, our concern for a lot of students was that the only time they could come to the health center was during class time," Bullis said. "Our office was open the same hours as most of the other offices on campus, and we need to be sensitive to the needs of our students and employees."
Randy Hyman, dean of students, helped Bullis make adjustments to the health center hours with a student survey last spring.
"We suspected the hours were not helpful to students," Hyman said. "We used the survey to get feedback from students and had a meeting with the staff to get their full input. The decision was very carefully considered."
The adjustments to office hours are on a trial basis and will not affect the budget or cost students any more money, Bullis said.
"It's primarily a trial basis for one year," Bullis said. "It'll take time for students to find out about the new hours and get used to them."
Bullis said he will re-evaluate the hours in the spring and possibly increase the budget to further extend the hours.
"The decision is not locked in stone," Hyman said. "If we need to make more adjustments to the hours, we will. The survey suggested more students would take advantage of evening hours rather than Saturday hours."
Not everyone is thrilled about the change.
"The staff wants to do what they can to help the students, but change is always difficult," Bullis said. "Some have complaints because of the personal inconvenience the new hours will cause; I think everybody has mixed feelings."
The health center also made adjustments to their medical record system.
"We just went live with a new record system in July, and we're still getting used to it," Bullis said. "The first few weeks after school starts, its going to be rough, so I hope the students cut us some slack."
As for the health center schedule, the new hours are Monday, Thursday and Friday from 8 am to 4:30 pm and Tuesday and Wednesday from 9 am - 6:30. The center will no longer be open Saturdays.
"We think it's going to work out very well," Hyman said. "The new schedule is designed to help the students, that's the bottom line."
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