Students Living In Flats

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30405, 2 April 1964, Page 12

Students Living In Flats

Sir,—“Belshassar” asks may men hostel students entertain girls in their rooms. The answer is “yes,” and women students in one hostel have a similar right. This is inevitable with insufficient common rooms, especially small ones. The situation could be improved now, by more common rooms (at the expense of student bedrooms) or long-term, by combined male-female hostels with separate sleeping but joint common rooms. Room visiting is not in itself bad; its length may be, especially in shared rooms. Those in authority might well weigh the right of students to quiet study and privacy against excessive freedom (licence?) in visiting. Individual liberty is restricted for common good in home, school, job, etc.; why not hostels? Flat supervision is a greater problem, although some universities have a solution. One Canterbury student, hoping to find study easier in flat than hostel, remarked, disillusioned: “At least visitors go home at 11 in a hostel.”—Yours, etc., B.K.R. April 1, 1964.