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Are Friday night classes right?

In an attempt to reduce overcrowding in Monday through Thursday night classes, the University of La Verne’s administrators will make Friday night classes mandatory in each department. Although they have a perfectly good reason to create this policy, the program’s success is not guaranteed.

Beginning in spring 2006, 12 percent of the total evening courses offered in each of the University’s colleges must be offered Friday nights.

Adeline Cardenas-Clague, dean of academic support and retention services, said that classes and classrooms are “completely overbooked” Monday through Thursday nights, especially courses offered on Tuesday nights.

There are currently a few Friday night courses already offered by the University, but by having additional classes on Friday nights, the departments can evenly distribute their courses, reducing the number of “overbooked” classes, Cardenas-Clague said.

If the departments do not evenly distribute their night classes voluntarily, the deans will be asked to step in and make the necessary adjustments to achieve that 12 percent quota.

Course distribution reports will be sent to the deans for approval on Oct. 28 and any final adjustments and corrections are due back to the office of the registrar by Nov. 7.

Cardenas-Clague said that this is strictly an administration decision since the office of the registrar is in charge of scheduling the classrooms.

We, at the Campus Times, understand why there is a need to offer more Friday night classes.

It does not create the best learning environment when there are classrooms that are meant to hold 20 students, but are packed with 35 students.

It also does not create the best learning environment when students have to sit all the way in the back corner of the class because there isn’t enough room for them to sit behind a table or when professors cannot give individualized attention to each student.

By having more evenly distributed courses, the students will be getting what they deserve, considering how much they pay for tuition.

Many of us decided to go to the University because it has that intimate, smaller school setting. If we wanted to have classrooms that are crammed with students or where the professor does not even know our names, we could have attended a public school or a much bigger university.

However, just because it might seem like the only option we have it doesn’t mean that it will be a success. Yes, there will be more classes offered on Friday nights. But there is no way to know how many students will actually register for these classes.

Technically night classes are considered classes that are after 4 p.m. So yes, we can see students actually registering for the Friday night courses that begin at 4 p.m., however we doubt that there will be many students registering for the courses that start at 6:30 p.m. and end at 9:50 p.m.

After all if students are hesitant to register for Friday morning classes, there is little that will make them want to have a Friday night class.

And if students are still not signing up for these classes after all the changes are made, the University will just be left holding the proverbial bag.

This will leave administrators no other options but to forget about the new policy and resort back to the packed classrooms or attempt to evenly distribute the courses in another way. Meanwhile the money to run those Friday night classes will have been spent.

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Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Campus Times Editorial Board.

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