Getting Friday off of school will soon become more difficult. A decision made by President Donald Gerth will end all 75-minute Monday-Wednesday class times between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. by next fall. In their place, students taking three-unit classes at these times will be forced to take 50-minute Monday-Wednesday-Friday classes. The change, proponents say, will free lecture classrooms by 25 percent during these times. If Gerth has the right idea, he has the wrong campus.

The majority of Sacramento State students work, and many of them work full time in order to pay their way through school. In this environment, flexibility for students is paramount. With the elimination of these popular classes, some students will be forced to choose between work and school. Quick graduation will be more difficult for many students who choose the latter. When Gerth stressed the importance of graduation and retention rates in his fall address, this serious academic inconvenience to working students must have slipped his mind.

Gerth and the exploratory committee that drafted the plan seemed to lend no consideration to its potential impact on the rest of the week?s scheduling, most notably Tuesday-Thursday classes. Potentially large numbers of students will shift their classes to this time. It is reasonable to believe that if students need a day off, they will take it, even if it means crowding classes on other days. If empty parking lots and a barren campus are any indication, Friday classes are traditionally unpopular.

Some departments have worked hard to accommodate rising numbers of students without limiting their options by vigorously promoting night and Saturday classes as well as distance education. By eliminating class times, their efforts will be in vain. A university-wide policy change will attempt to solve problems that do not exist in some departments. Decisions to eliminate class times should be at the discretion of department chairs, not the administration.