An ASI-planned protest and possible sit-in over the decision to start a Monday-Wednesday-Friday class schedule next year was called off after Sacramento State President Donald Gerth hastily arranged an unprecedented meeting with ASI board members Friday.

Gerth and Vice President for Student Affairs Shirley Uplinger met with board members for nearly one hour and offered ASI a chance to submit alternative scheduling plans to the one Gerth announced Oct. 1.

“I?m willing to hear different ideas,” Gerth said.

When Gerth confirmed that he had decided to alter the fall 2002 prime time schedule from its present format to one that includes mandatory Friday class sessions, he said, “That?s that.”

But Uplinger said, “President Gerth asked for the Friday meeting because he now understands students believe they were underrepresented in the decision process.”

Gerth?s new understanding followed a heated Thursday afternoon discussion with ASI President Artemio Pimentel, after Pimentel presented him with an ASI resolution that “condemns the lack of collegiality and shared governance used to produce the plan.”

Gerth described that meeting with Pimentel as “unproductive.””Our difference is that I care more about the issue and Art cares more about the process,” Gerth said.

But Pimentel said that the disagreement ran deeper than that.

“The tone of the discussion was pretty harsh,” he said. “He told me, “If ASI wants war, then it?s war.?”

When Gerth met with a hastily assembled ASI board the nextday, he admitted, “Students should have been on the committee that examined this issue.”

That meeting was arranged shortly after Gerth found out that ASI was considering a demonstration in his offices sometime this week.

ASI officials said they discussed a range of actions after Gerth?s conversation with Pimentel, including a sit-in at Sacramento Hall.

Gerth’s Monday-Wednesday-Friday plan has come under fire by students who question whether its formulation followed the university?s policies of joint governance and collegiality. The task force that formally proposed eliminating Monday-Wednesday 75-minute classes from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in favor of Monday-Wednesday-Friday classes was comprised of faculty and administrators, but no students.

Sacramento State’s policies of collegiality and shared governance allow students a voice in university policies such as admissions, graduation requirements, curriculum, methods of teaching and the conduct of creative and scholarly activities.

ASI members Luke Wood and Calvin Davis led early opposition to the schedule change by gathering nearly 850 student signatures supporting a resolution “to make it easier for a student to be a student” by opposing scheduling that would “eliminate future class options.”

Wood admitted during last Wednesday’s ASI board meeting that the resolution?s wording was weak, but that he believed it conveyed the spirit of student thinking on campus.

After 40 minutes of discussion, the board amended the Wood-Davis resolution by rewriting it to focus on the matter of shared governance.

That was the statement Pimentel delivered to Gerth on Thursday.

“I think he?s dug in and won’t change his position,” Pimentel said Thursday evening after his meeting with Gerth.

At Friday?s meeting with the board, Gerth offered to allow ASI a voice in his Oct. 1 decision, suggesting that they assemble a fact-finding team, review the work done by the faculty-administration task force and come back to him with alternatives by October 24.

The first task force had approximately one week to work on the same project, according to Gerth.

ASI officials discussed Gerth?s offer Friday afternoon and will announce their next moves soon.

“Associated Students is in a fact-finding phase right now,” said ASI Press Secretary Janus Norman. “Monday we?ll get together for more discussion, but nothing can be officially decided until we meet Wednesday. “

Norman said that the sit-in is on hold for now.

ASI has called a special public meeting for Oct. 17 at 1:30 p.m. in the Foothill Suite.