Foreign language department administrators plan to keep the Foreign Language Learning Center open an additional night per week next semester, despite a recent decline in use of current night hour usage.

The center, located in the Watson Hall basement, began offering evening hours Sept. 14 in response to requests from teachers and students. These hours are 7 to 10 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday.

In the first week of extended hours, a total of 62 students attended the night sessions, according to Raymond Tourville, coordinator of the Foreign Language Residency Program. In the second week, 43; third, 59; fourth, 41; fifth, 30; and sixth week, 16. No information is available for the seventh week, Oct. 26 and 27.

Typical day and night use is 1,100 to 1,200 students overall, according to Rosaura Young, director of the center. These numbers include use of foreign language computer programs, audio and videotapes and the viewing of satellite television transmissions from other countries.

Tourville credits the two-week dip in night use to midterms and Homecoming. He said 60 percent of the 300 students answering a learning center survey indicated that the extra hours helped them.

The survey was started last Wednesday and will continue until the end of this week.

Next semester, Tourville said he anticipates the center to be open from 7 to 9 p.m., Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. The 9 to 10 p.m. center hours will most likely be cut, Tourville said, because center records indicate that attendance is usually slow during that time.

The evening hours could not be started earlier in the semester for lack of qualified work-study employees who could work during that time, Young said. “The problem was, we didn’t find help fast enough.” Last summer only one work-study employee could be found for the center, Young said. Normally the lab has four work-study employees in summer.

Tourville said he is confident that more students will take advantage of the night hours as they become aware of them. “It takes from a year and one-half to two years to establish a pattern with students, to know it’s open in the evenings,” Tourville said. “You don’t do it in a semester. We do have a commitment to serve students on an expanded time frame.” Tourville said he believes the foreign language teachers have done an adequate job of informing their students of the night hours.

The added evening workers only cost the department about $8 a week, Tourville said, because the federal government picks up the rest of the cost of work-study employees.

“The whole concept is servicing the students,” he said. The center is “one of the most up-to-date labs in the country. We’d like to see students use it more and more.”