By By Leesa Oberholzer
Friday, a day most students use to recover from a long week, start early on homework or take part in internships, is also known as the most avoided class day of the week.
“I am actually happy we can have off on Friday,” Joshua Feng, freshman political science major, said. “It raises my time to do work and relax and gives me time to recharge my thinking power.”
Feng said he hopes a four-day schedule will be feasible for him next semester.
Due to consistent unpopularity among students, Friday class meetings have been decreased but not completely removed from the University’s academic scheduling.
“The enrollment in Friday classes shows stable numbers,” Herman Berliner, University Provost, said.
Berliner said a strict Monday, Wednesday rotation is not sufficient.
“Since Friday class enrollment is stable it would not benefit the Universty to eliminate them,” he said. “We would not be utilizing our classroom facilities.”
Schools nationwide, like Duke University, feel that Friday classes would allow students to graduate sooner and are increasing the number of classes offered, according to The Diamondback, the University of Maryland’s newspaper.
Duke has increased the number of Friday classses by 20 percent.
Martha Hollander, professor of art history at the University does not agree with the sentiments of administrators at Duke.
“I would vote to eliminate Friday class times entirely,” she said. “The Monday, Wednesday and Friday 55-minute timeslots would need to be turned into Monday and Wednesday 1-hour-25-minute slots.”
“This would create much greater flexibility for campus-wide events, office hours, faculty meetings, etc., which normally all have to get squeezed into the Wednesday common hour,” Hollander added.
Jacqueline Blessinger, a sophomore psychology major, said she would be in favor of such a scheduling change.
“Friday classes are horrible,” she said. “I would definitely prefer Monday and Wednesday, even if the class time was extended.”
Other students, like Jenn Lupo, a sophomore public relations major, felt an aversion toward Friday class, but did not favor the idea of extended Monday, Wednesday classes.
“It’s so much easier, especially when I want go home, because I get the three day weekend, but I think it would be best to just keep Friday classes,” she said. “If I had the choice, I’d probably rather have them instead of extended hours. I can barely take an hour and a half.”
Hollander also acknowledged the potential drawbacks of the condensed scheduling.
“It might, however, create a scheduling problem: that is, not enough timeslots overall, but perhaps this could be remedied in other ways,” she said.
“When I taught at SUNY Albany about 12 years ago, they used this scheduling system,” Hollander added. “I don’t know if it’s been changed since then, but it worked well and both faculty and students were comfortable with it.”
For some students, especially freshman, Friday classes remain the unavoidable leftovers at registration time.
“I like the idea of tagging on an extra 25 minutes to Monday and Wednesday classes rather than having to attend a Friday class,” Jason Melser, a freshman biology major said. “I think attendance will improve with Monday and Wednesday classes, because nobody wants to go to class on Friday.”