Students who live in the dormitories at Chungbuk National University(CBNU) have probably experienced rushing into their dormitories in a hurry to keep a curfew. Anyone can see groups who run on the road leading up to the dormitories between 11:50 and 12:00 not to infringe on the curfew.
The curfew of CBNU's dormitories is at 12 midnight at present. The doors of the dormitories are locked around 12:05 without exception. After that, students can exit from the dormitories at 5 in the morning. Students cannot go out except under special circumstances. During exam periods, the curfew is relaxed to 2 a.m., and students are free at 4 a.m. If students have reasons for sleeping out overnight, they need to apply for that.
Dormitory officers receive permissions from their parents and make a decision for the application as soon as possible. The biggest reason why the dormitories make curfew rules is the safety problems of the dormitory students. When students who commute from home don't go home until late into the night, they receive calls from their parents. Similar to this situation, many students and parents regard the dormitory as a second home and the managers of it as second parents and protectors. The CBNU dormitories have about 2,700 students at present. Practically, the dormitory officers cannot call every student. It is the reason to appoint the curfew.
Despite the dormitories' convincing reasons about the curfew, many students who live in the dormitories voiced their complaints about the curfew. One student(College of Engineering) said, "I am tired of going to the dormitory at 12 p.m. every day. I wish the curfew away. I don't understand the reason why it exists."
Lee Hae-mi(Dept. of French Language and Literature, '11) said, "The curfew is a big restriction when we study in the library or have a meeting for team projects. I want to alter the curfew for students who experience various inconveniences. In addition, I think that it is inefficient to keep shutting students out of the dormitories until 5 a.m. when they arrive after 12 p.m. because, in those situations, they should stay outside until 5 a.m."
The dormitory's manager set the rules about the 12 p.m. curfew. Lee Bo-ram, who is the person in charge of the main dormitory, said, "The dormitory officers decided that 12 p.m. is the right time when students can enter the dormitories after going about their business. Also, we found a compromise, which is to appoint the 12 p.m. curfew after investigating the complaints from students who go to sleep early because we cannot be one-sided. If the curfew of the dormitories changes to 1 a.m. or 2 a.m., students who go to sleep early will experience inconveniences of loud noise."
In addition, the person in charge of the main dormitory said that they have ways to enter the dormitories whether students go in or not after 12 p.m. The methods are, when students are late for the curfew, they can enter the dormitories by calling the dormitory manager’s number which is attached to the first floor door or by asking a favor of the chief of the dormitory office. The people in charge of the dormitories impose three penalty points for students when they stay out overnight without notice. However, the above situations impose only one penalty point.
They mentioned that they always explain this, but students don't make effective utilization of this system because of their inconveniences or penalty points. Most universities' dormitories strictly appoint the curfews just like our university does. The curfews are varied at 11 p.m., 11:30 or 1 a.m. for different universities. However, several universities, such as Seoul National University, Korea Polytechnic University and Chungnam National University, manage their dormitories using the fully autonomous system which doesn’t control the access time of the dormitories.
The person in charge of the main dormitory said, "After we talked to teachers in charge of universities' dormitories which don't appoint curfews, they couldn’t strictly manage students because they didn't have the management system such as ours. Those universities are unaccountable for what happens to students who live in the dormitories because there are no prepared methods to check if students are coming or not to the dormitories. However, people in charge of the dormitories think we should operate the dormitories and appoint the curfew because we are obligated to protect students. Many students are discontent with the management of the curfew, but parents welcome it because of the safety problems."
The CBNU dormitories have been welfare facilities for students since the Rose Dormitory, which was the first female dormitory, was opened and aims to give living facilities to students. The dormitories at CBNU include the main dormitories(Kaesungjae and Kaeyoungwon), the BTL dormitory(Yangsungjae) and the foreigners' dormitory(Yanghyeonjae) at present.