Friday classes won’t fix alcohol problems

It’s Friday, Friday, gotta get to classes on Friday?

If the IU administration has its way, yes.

Provost Karen Hanson asked the Bloomington Faculty Council to look at the number of students who take Friday classes because of a supposed
drinking problem.

Dean of Students Harold “Pete” Goldsmith said from 2010 to 2011, the number of alcohol-related arrests on Thursdays increased and is now comparable to those on Fridays and Saturdays. He said it could be related to the fact that many people don’t take Friday classes.

So the solution is to get rid of free Fridays? Apparently.

Vice Provost for Faculty and Student Affairs Thomas Gieryn said he thinks IU should have five-day weeks, just like the workforce. “Just about every other sector of the economy has a five-day work week, Monday through Friday,” he said. “The weekend is Saturday and Sunday. Why should IU be different?”

IU should be different because we, like other universities, are not part of the regular workforce.

In the regular workforce, people do eight-hour days. Then, hopefully, they get to leave work and go home to their families. They don’t pull all-nighters trying to memorize the periodic table or the dates of the Peloponnesian War. They don’t have midterms. Real life doesn’t have scantrons.

IU is not real life.

According to the study, most freshmen do have Friday classes. It’s the upperclassmen who manage to avoid them — more than half of juniors and seniors don’t take Friday classes.

It’s the upperclassmen who are legally allowed to drink.  It’s also the upperclassmen who choose classes first, which means they’ll be able to avoid Friday classes and leave the five-day weeks to the freshmen.

IUSA President Justin Kingsolver said he knows adding Friday classes won’t solve the
problem. “They can choose to add as many Friday classes as they would like, but ultimately, unless they mandate it, students will not choose to have Friday classes,” he said.

Kingsolver said classes won’t change drinking practices. “If they want to solve the alcohol problem, they need to have an alcohol-directed program,” he said. “They shouldn’t mess with the academic calendar, our curriculum and our schedules to solve some kind of drinking problem. I think it’s a terrible idea.”

There are plenty of non-alcohol-related reasons to avoid a five-day week. Some undergraduates, such as those in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the School of Education, work in their fields; some students travel home; some students have jobs or internships and need blocks of time to be able to work; some students pile on classes early in the week and need the extra day to study.

The administration said it recognizes this and is considering changing the schedule so classes meet Monday and Friday, so students would have Wednesday off instead.
Apparently the administration doesn’t realize how well this would work for those who are old enough to drink. Hello Two-dollar Tuesdays!

Students drink. It’s a fact. Adding Friday classes wont change the number of student arrests after a trip to the bars. This is especially true due to their upperclassman status.

The administration needs to leave the class schedule alone. Students will face the five-day workweek soon enough.

­— hanns@indiana.edu