Crowded classrooms, tight parking and long lunch lines haven?t always characterized campus life at Sacramento State.

From 1991 through 1995 student enrollment at the university fell 15 percent, raising concerns among faculty and staff that the school would cut jobs as classes sat empty and departments scrapped entire course sections.

Seven years ago, the administration pushed for a “flexible schedule” to attract working students, but the idea snagged in the Academic Senate, largely because of what was going on in the School of Business.

By 1994, several departments in the School of Business offered almost no classes on Fridays. According to Richard Cleveland, chair of the committee that authored Sac State?s flexible schedule model, many professors in that college started a practice that angered their colleagues.

“Faculty in the School of Business found that they could moonlight as consultants to regional businesses if they could get more time off,” he said.

Even though Monday-Wednesday-Friday classes were supposed to be the rule, business professors increasingly wanted to teach 75-minute sections to have Fridays free for consulting.

But not everyone agrees that professors were doing anything wrong.

“That?s not accurate,” Richard Guarino associate dean for the College of Business Administration said. “I?ve never known anyone who moonlighted.”

Guarino, who has been at Sac State since 1979, said that students benefit when professors work outside the classroom and that the university encourages “personal and professional growth.”

“One of the things that makes professors valuable to students is their contacts with the real world,” he said. “As far as other schools being concerned with the our schedule, well, some disciplines align themselves with (outside) contracts and others don?t.”

Six years ago, faculty in other departments?although not all?soon followed the School of Business model with no reprimand from either their deans or the president. Cleveland said that over time a de facto Monday-Wednesday, Tuesday-Thursday schedule was in place, even though flexible scheduling called for classes to run five days per week.

Many faculty members were upset that their colleagues were getting every Friday off by what they saw as an abuse of scheduling authority by department chairs.

And, Cleveland said, they were irritated that the administration allowed the double standard.

So when Cleveland’s committee proposed the flexible schedule with Koester’s backing, opposition surfaced from faculty worried that it would promote more abuse, with some professors getting four days off each week.

“There was a lively debate,” said Vice President and Chief of Staff Elizabeth Moulds, who has been at Sac State since 1966. “At first, the faculty didn?t want to change the schedule.”

Then the administration and faculty struck a deal. If the Senate supported the new plan, the deans of each college would insist department chairs schedule classes for either Wednesday-Friday or Friday only. With that agreement, the Senate passed the plan on Sept. 15, 1995.

Monday-Wednesday classes started campus-wide in the fall of 1996. California’s economic recession gave way to recovery that same year and students came back to school: 23,430 attended in fall 1996, the first of five years of enrollment growth.

But, according to Cleveland, the deans did not adhere to the administration’s deal. Gerth and particularly Koester, who was supposed to make sure the deans followed the rules, looked the other way.

“The system went into effect, but the regulations that would control its abuses were never enforced by the administration,” Cleveland said.

Current Vice President of Academic Affairs Paul Noble echoed Cleveland at the Oct. 17 Associated Students, Inc. board meeting, but the tone of what he said seemed to indicate the administration was dragged into flexible scheduling.

“Six years ago, flexible scheduling was allowed on this campus. The deans are not doing the job. The experiment has failed,” he said, referring to class space usage.

And in a meeting with ASI officials Oct. 15, Senate Faculty Chair Bob Buckley also said that the deans have not followed the Friday scheduling deal.

“No ?police’ are enforcing the Friday use rules,” Buckley said. “And all schedules go through the deans.”

But Moulds spread the blame around to every constituency on campus.

“Nobody?students, faculty, chairs, the deans or the administration–ended up owning the Friday problem,” she said in a telephone interview. “It wasn?t a serious problem until recently when student enrollment went up.”

Moulds cited Thursday night Greek society parties as a reason Friday classes were not scheduled.

“Fraternities and sororities started partying on Thursday nights. If you party hard on Thursday, you?re not coming to class on Friday,” she said. “And if you know you?re not going to go to class on Friday, you won?t sign up for a Friday class.”

According to the Office of Student Activities, approximately 1700 of Sac State?s 21,000 full time undergraduates belong to a Greek club.

Sac State ranked 17th of the 23 colleges in the CSU system in percentage of students enrolled in a Friday course, according to a recent report by the CSU Chancellor?s office.

That low ranking is one reason Gerth wants to change the class schdule format next fall. Speaking to the Faculty Senate Oct. 18, Gerth said he is resisting pressure from his boss, CSU Chancellor Charles Reed, and even Gov. Gray Davis, to curtail enrollment next year.

“On Sept. 1, the Chancellor’s office wanted a plan for what we are going to do about enrollment,” Gerth said. “Our governor, in spite of his political party, is in favor of a peel-back posture.”

Now that the administration has to account for inefficiencies it allowed for several years, it is blaming the very scheduling system it lobbied to get in 1994 and then failed to enforce.

With enrollment projected by school officials to exceed 28,000 students next fall, Gerth thinks anyone questioning his proposed schedule change is selfish.

“A student asked, ?Why not just hold enrollment down?’ Well, I suppose if you’re already here, drawing up the bridge is OK,” Gerth said to the Faculty Senate. “But if you’re not here, it’s not OK.”