Due to a shortage of classroom space, Columbia language departments have been forced to schedule a number of classes on Fridays for the upcoming semester.
While students may not relish the idea of attending classes on what is traditionally a day off at Columbia, Friday language classes are “not so much a sudden change as a change over time,” deputy registrar John Carter said. “Languages have traditionally not had much guidance in scheduling, and the resulting chaos has built up over time. We need to make scheduling more uniform,” he said.
In the past, many three- and four-point language courses have met three days a week between Monday and Thursday, which creates a conflict with the typical Monday-Wednesday and Tuesday-Thursday undergraduate course schedules. A language course that meets Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, for instance, takes up both a Monday-Wednesday and a Tuesday-Thursday time slot, despite the fact that it does not meet on Wednesday.
“If anything is going to meet three days a week, it needs to meet on Friday,” associate registar Brady Sloan said.
The Office of the Registrar worked in conjunction with other University administrators to address space restrictions, and Sloan said that almost all courses meeting three times a week will be affected.
The impact of this change on particular language departments depends on the configuration of each department’s course offerings. The East Asian Languages and Cultures and Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures departments have both implemented significant scheduling changes for next semester.
“We have a terrible shortage of classrooms, and it’s all about maximizing classroom utilization,” Jessica Rechtschaffer, academic administrator for MEALAC, said.
Joseph Rome, EALAC department coordinator, estimated that less than half of his department’s courses will be affected. Upper-level classes will be affected most, as introductory courses tend to meet four days a week. “We’re affected, but not seriously,” Rome said.
The Italian department, by contrast, will have only one course meeting on Fridays. Departments like Italian and French, which already had uniform scheduling with most courses meeting two or four days a week, are least impacted by the changes.
While the scheduling alterations make sense for classroom use, they may pose problems for students who devote their Fridays to studying, jobs, or internships.
“I hate that my Spanish class will meeting on Fridays. I was planning on getting a Friday through Sunday job, but now I can’t,” Jared Frieder, CC ’12, said. When registering for the spring semester, Frieder found there were no Intermediate I Spanish courses that did not meet on Fridays.
But some students may be able to rest easy for the moment. “We won’t see 100 percent of the changes this spring,” Sloan said.
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