Nearly a year after Sacramento State administrators unveiled a controversial plan for a 5-day per week class schedule that started with this semester, Vice President of Budget and Planning Paul Noble said the some of the numbers are in, and Monday-Wednesday-Friday class scheduling looks like a success.

“We’ve had a lot of growth this semester,” Noble said in an interview last week. ” We’ve channeled much of it into Friday classes. I don’t know where we would have put everybody if we hadn’t done it.”

“It” is the new class schedule format that President Donald Gerth and Noble one year ago proposed to deal with the burgeoning number of students enrolling at Sac State.

Before the fall 2002 semester, most 3-unit classes met for 75 minutes on Mondays and Wednesdays or Tuesdays and Thursdays.

On Fridays, buildings stood practically empty.

High-ranking officials, including Chancellor Charles Reed, the Board of Trustees, and even some state legislators, cast a disapproving eye on what they perceived as Sac State’s wasting of facilities, especially with classes bursting under the four-day schedule and no end to bulging enrollment in sight.

Despite Sac State cutting off freshman applications in May and transfer applications in July – the first time in a decade that administrators held to a firm deadline – 28,558 students attend classes. That figure is an all-time high, 1,635 more students than last fall’s 26,923.

“Now we have 90 percent of the classrooms scheduled on Fridays, and 75 to 80 percent of the seats in those classes are full,” Noble said. “I’ve noticed a lot more action on campus on Fridays, too.”

Noble attributes that to Gerth’s plan that left Tuesday-Thursday classes untouched, but originally mandated Monday-Wednesday classes that start between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. meet for 50 minutes and add a Friday session.

The idea behind the plan was that the university could offer more classes in the same amount of time while upping the use of classrooms on Friday.

Although more students are on campus for that fifth day, administrators have not tallied the number of course offerings available or whether there are, in fact, more classes on the schedule.

“I haven’t looked at the numbers that way, but my sense of it is that we’re also seeing more Friday afternoon classes filling because students are already on campus that day,” Noble said.

Even the plan’s most strident critics admit that the new class format has relieved some of the overcrowding that was common one year ago.

“It’s had a positive impact for the school because they can pack more students in,” said Associated Students, Inc. Vice President Luke Wood, who spearheaded student protests against the new schedule last fall.

When Gerth and Noble announced the plan last fall, students and some faculty balked at the idea. Students didn’t like the notion of having to attend classes on Friday, with many claiming that it would cut into their work schedules.

Faculty deemed it a heavy-handed mandate. Both groups claimed the Gerth rushed the plan without properly consulting them.

After nearly three months, several high-level meetings, and formal proposals from the Faculty Senate and ASI, Gerth compromised. He scaled back the scope of the new schedule to include only Monday-Wednesday-Friday, 9 a.m. to noon classes, a nod to ASI.And he accepted a faculty proposal for a “university work group” made up of educators and administrators that will review the plan at the end of the 2002-03 academic year.

Wood thinks the new schedule hurts students and increases access at a time when the administration should focus on retention.

“I’ve heard students say that it’s made it harder to work and be a student,” Wood said. “And what’s the point of packing more students in when we have such a horrible graduation rate?”University studies show that approximately one-third of undergraduate students earn a degree from Sac State within six years.

Senior Lisa Nilsson said the new schedule forced her to switch jobs.

“I worked for the same company since I was a freshman,” she said. “But when I told them I couldn’t work all day on Fridays anymore, they wanted to cut my hours back so much that it wasn’t worth it. I got another job, but it pays less. Thank God I’m out of here in a few weeks!”

Freshman students have a different perspective.

“I’m used to going to school five days a week,” said undeclared frosh Jeff Begley. “It’s no biggie.”