The Curriculum Committee has been examining how class blocks, convocation hours and course distribution could be improved in the academic time table to reduce conflicts and better accommodate extracurriculars.
The time-table that is currently in use was adopted in 2019. Interim Registrar Belinda Backous said that academic policies, operations and procedures get reviewed periodically and depending on feedback received, issues with the most attention will be reviewed first.
“There’s been some increasing interest in 80-minute blocks, and that was feedback that we heard last year from department chairs when we were working on the schedule that we have right now,” said Backous. “That was just some of the feedback that came up. And it kind of caused us to go, ‘maybe it would be worth looking at the timetable and what else encompasses that?’”
Student Representative for social sciences Molly Wilcoxson `26 said that the committee’s first few meetings were used to get an understanding of what faculty and students wanted to see implemented. Proposals such as a Monday through Thursday schedule, early classes starting at 7 a.m. or classes ending at 5 p.m. were discussed.
“None of us are necessarily advocating for these changes,” said Wilcoxson. “These suggestions were a chance to see what could and couldn’t be done to the schedule and to understand the potential implications with those changes.”
One topic of discussion for the meeting was adding the option for evening classes. Student Representative for humanities Michael Murray `27 said that the committee was looking at the overlapping of courses and the over-concentrated time blocks seen in the timetable.
“There was one semester where I think there were around 80 courses that were scheduled from Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 1-2 p.m., and that’s just the kind of blocking that is really unfortunate,” Murray said. “We wanted to try to get rid of [that] because it limits the options that students can have for the courses they can take.”
Utilizing evening classes could offset the over-concentrated time blocks in the current schedule. Nick Phillips, associate dean of the college, said that he and Backous are hoping to “pilot some additional courses in the evening” for the 2026-27 academic year. The idea would be to have a handful of courses held between 7 to 10 p.m.
Another topic of discussion for the committee has been moving convocation hours to Fridays in order to allow some students and faculties in certain disciplines to have the time to attend. Scholars’ Convocation takes place on Thursdays from 11 a.m. through noon.
“But that has its own downstream effects and so that’s really where we are,” Backous said. “ I really think that’s probably what has, again, not stopped the conversation, but caused us to slow down, and I think, gather some additional data to see where the impacts are.”
After a decision is made by the committee about the change, faculty will vote on the decision the following month.
“This is a different type of work, right?” Backous said. “It requires patience and continual revisiting and a lot of communication, so we’re gonna stick with it.”
This article has been updated on Nov. 17, 2o25 to correct the timeline of any possible changes made to the academic timetable.
