By: Poliana Guimarães / Contributing Writer
It’s been four years since a milestone agreement to change the scheduling of classes at Florida International University, the last of the state’s colleges to move from a Monday-Thursday to Monday-Friday structure.
The 50-minutes blocks in the Monday-Wednesday-Friday rotation have affected both the professors and the students, who say the choppy and lengthened weeks limit opportunities for better employment and participation in extra-curricular activities.
“(Last) semester I had three hour breaks between each of my classes and had classes in the morning, afternoon, and night,” said Beatriz Furtado, 21, an environmental studies student. “That would be understandable if I lived at school and had no other occupation other than being a student, but that’s not the case.”
As urban universities and community colleges around the country begin providing students with more flexible schedules, Furtado and others believe FIU is heading in the opposite direction.
Although the schedule goes from 7 a.m. to 9:10 p.m., the majority of the classes are offered during business hours, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.
“It sucks,” Marina Dos Santos, 24, a biology student, said. “The labs are always in the middle of the day and they are three hours long, so of course I can’t take them because I have to work.”
Students who attend urban universities compared to those who attend more traditional universities are more likely to perform multiple roles while they attend school; in particular, they are more likely to have extensive work and family obligations.
“I need to work to pay for school and as a full-time student I have a really hard time finding a job because my availability is virtually non-existent,” Furtado said. “The only jobs available are low-paying and completely unrelated to my major or future.
“Besides that, getting an internship is unrealistic and juggling time for any type of commitment outside of school is impractical.”
It has become increasingly common for urban colleges and universities around the country to offer late night classes in an effort to meet the needs of those who would like to take classes but cannot attend during the day.
Anne Arundel Community College in Baltimore has begun offering late night classes, which they informally labeled “Midnight Madness.” Others in Indiana, Missouri, Oregon and Boston have joined in.
At this point, FIU has not.
In November 2005, the Revenue Estimating Conference predicted an extreme decrease in available PECO funds for building construction after 2006-2007.
The PECO fund, which stands for Public Education Capital Outlay, is the main source of state capital funding for Florida’s school districts, community colleges and the State University System.
Besides private endowments, PECO is a major building fund source for state universities to build new structures or remodel, renovate or repair existing ones.
At the time, Florida’s Office of Program Policy Analysis & Government Accountability prepared a study that looked at classroom utilization by time of day and day of week at each of the university’s campuses. Under their calculations, FIU had the lowest utilization in the state.
That conclusion severely threatened FIU’s access to PECO funds, which prompted FIU in 2006 to create the Classroom Space and Utilization Committee to identify new ways to put more students in more classrooms during the daytime hours used for counting purposes.
The committee developed a few strategies, which began with turning FIU’s four-day week into a five-day week, initiating classes on Fridays.
Second, it arranged a new schedule, which consisted of Monday-Wednesday-Friday 50-minute blocks from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., thus creating 15 new time blocks per week.
Associate Vice President Jeffrey Gonzalez said the committee’s concerns went beyond the utilization data.
“The change in scheduling was part of a larger discussion on the needs for flexible scheduling as we adapt to new teaching styles,” Gonzalez said.
Four years after these changes, students and professors question the flexibility of the new schedule.
“I do not like the Monday-Wednesday-Friday 50-minute class schedule that FIU has adopted,” business instructor Stephen Luscher said. “It is a complete waste of time when you consider how much time one has to waste getting to and from class and the loss of time due to the professor getting ready, taking attendance and all that.”
Tiffany Bryant, an international relations professor, concurs.
“Having to come to campus for a 50-minute class results with them [students] having to adjust work and family schedules,” Bryant said. “The students often end up taking more time traveling to campus and locating parking than actually having to be on campus.”
Budget cuts and spending decisions have also influenced the current class schedule at FIU.
“They have cut down many classes,” said Patricia Araujo, 21, a dietetics and nutrition student. Araujo said limiting sections reduces student choices of subjects, professors, times and days.
Even so, Gonzalez said, “The university has not received many complaints about the new schedule.”
With the addition of the committee and the changes made to the use of space, he said, FIU was able to use PECO funds to renovate classrooms, a project that will be done in phases over upcoming years.
Poliana Guimarães, a December 2010 journalism graduate, produced this story in the JOU 3303 Advanced News Writing course taught by Dr. Fred Blevens.
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