The Romain College of Business is experimenting with a four-day week schedule for 20% of its class schedule beginning August 2023.

20% of the RCOB’s 50-minute Monday, Wednesday and Friday classes will be structured as 75-minute Monday and Wednesday classes. The 75-minute Tuesday, Thursday classes will remain the same, allowing students to follow a four-day week structure without classes on Friday.

The four-day week schedule will be an experiment for students to choose whether they participate during the planning of their fall 2023 class schedules.

“Please note that it’s not our entire schedule,” said Timothy Schibik, assistant dean of the Romain College of Business. “We do have Monday, Wednesday, Friday classes, and there are things that are definitely going on across campus.”

Schibik said the schedules are built in advance, so if there is pushback or if the schedule change does not give students the free time they think it will, it can always be adjusted.

“I would stress that this is a pilot project,” Schibik said. “If we find it isn’t achieving the goals we want, then we can adapt to another schedule.”

Schibik said the class schedule change will not be a complete change for business students.

“The class meeting times are the same, it’s just a slightly different format structure, but it’s not different,” he said. “It’s something we’ve done a little bit in the past, and it’s something that is done in departments all around campus.” 

 Schibik said the decision was motivated by multiple factors.

“First and foremost, we try to be responsive to the needs of our students, and our faculty, if you will, as well as our overall mission of the college to serve those two groups,” Schibik said.

Schibik said RCOB has tried to be a leader and has made decisions other colleges followed. He said the decision to change the schedule is another way to be a leader.

“We were the first college to move our summer schedule online,” Schibik said. “At that time, everybody went, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘Why are you doing that?’ Now everybody does it, and I think it’s the same thing with this.”

He said the decision was mostly in reaction to student wishes.

“It’s mostly in reaction to what we’ve just found with our students and their wishes and trying to be more face-to-face,” Schibik said. “We’re still coming back from the pandemic, and there’s still lots of online things, but we’re predominantly a face-to-face class, and this just gives us a nice way to address that.”

Schibik said the decision was also made to collectively help the entire business college.

“Some of it is driven by what we think would be student preference, some of it is driven by what we think would be faculty preference, but largely, it’s trying to achieve these different educational components that we have within the college,” he said.

He said he hopes the decision will have a positive effect on students and allow them more time for other things in the “outer classroom learning environment.”

“We hope it’s going to have a very positive effect on the students because it’s going to give them more opportunities to engage in these co-curricular opportunities that are out there,” Schibik said.

Sudesh Mujumdar, dean of the Romain College of Business, said he hopes the change will also help students after they graduate.

“Our goal is that when our students graduate from here, they’ll have a suite of these market-leading competencies that will really distinguish them in the job market,” Mujumdar  said. 

Mujumdar said the schedule change allows students to have more time to “engage in work” in labs. 

He said the time outside of classes will allow students to be able to use equipment with other students and with faculty members. 

Schibik said class schedules are different all across campus and it is based on the course and “meeting people’s needs.”

“It’s an adaptive process for us,” Schibik said.

Jordan Justice, sophomore marketing major, said she supports the decision.

“I think it’s a good one, giving more options to have classes, and I think a lot of people do want Friday off anyways,” Justice said.

Yuanxing Yang, sophomore computer information systems major, said he supports the scheduling experiment for business students but is unsure for other majors.

“So, in my opinion, for business students, I will support it. But for other majors, I’m not sure about it because we have a lot of nursing and art students. For them, spending time in class is more important,” Yuanxing said.

Alec Garner, junior computer information systems major, said the decision will provide more time for students.

“I mean, it’ll give me more time to study, more time to do extra stuff, and because I’m in the army, in the ROTC,” Garner said. “It’ll allow me more time to focus on that field instead of just my classes here.”