This school year, Quinnipiac University launched common hour. This programming is devoted to allowing students time out of their busy schedules to pause and focus on engagement and campus participation.
Common hour takes place on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. Tuesdays are set aside for faculty and staff-led programs, whereas Thursdays allow students the freedom to lead their own programming.
However, recent conflict amongst student organizations and clubs suggest that these new rules have not been made clear from the beginning, as many have held their meetings during the common hour on Tuesdays, unaware that that was not permitted.
“Tuesdays are reserved for university-wide and office/department-sponsored programs,” Office of Campus Life wrote in the monthly student organizations newsletter. “Student organizations are not able to hold meetings/events during the Tuesday common hour. We apologize for any disruption this has caused in your event planning; the policy was shared after organization training had been completed.”
With growing confusion and frustration amongst students, they are encouraged to share any thoughts in regard to common hour with the Student Government Association.
According to Chief Experience Officer, Tom Ellet, “I think it’s about connection. I think it’s about engagement. I think it’s about skill or learning development. Those would be the big three that I would suggest,” Ellet says. “There’s four or five theme weeks during common hours. One was through the engagement fair… How do we engage people? Career Week is coming up. We will have Health Week next week. So the Health Fair will go on during common hour … I think those are another element to the common hour that I don’t think would have evolved without the common hour.”
Continuing to elaborate on the activities and programming to go on during common hour, Ellet ensures that with evaluation, assessment and reflection, Quinnipiac hopes to make common hour a part of its culture and something to be enjoyed by students, faculty and staff.
“I don’t want to lead and participate in anything that’s causing students strife, because what does that do? So I’m saying, let’s reflect. Let’s see what’s working. Let’s see what’s not working,” Ellet said.
According to The Chronicle, the school proposed a new ‘common time’ to give a mid-day break to students in February 2025, after 28% of students said it’s difficult for students who commute or live off campus to attend late night club meetings.
With that, following the end of each week, each session and program submits an evaluation detailing how many students showed up and if the event was worthwhile. With the recent changes made to common hour, Ellet explains how because programming has only been running for the past five weeks, it’s difficult to determine yet what is and isn’t working. However at the end of the fall semester, students will receive a “summative evaluation” where they can share their thoughts on the events they attended.
Students receive information on Tuesday common hour events every Sunday night via email. More information can also be found on TV screens across campus that include information about the events happening each week. Students currently enrolled in a first-year seminar class should receive an announcement every week from their professor sharing the events happening during the week.
Along with attending common hour events for educational purposes Ellet suggests attending for the social aspect as well.
“All I can say as a closing is, this was something that your predecessors have asked for because they felt there was a void, …” Ellet explains. “I think too often, young people think they have found their friend group in their freshman year, and sometimes, unfortunately, the friend group breaks up, and then in their junior year, (they’re) starting all over again. If you put yourself out there constantly, you can still hold on to the friends you like, but you can actually have more.”
