November 12, 2007

U of Iowa Battles 'Thirsty Thursdays' With Scholarly Fridays

Students at the University of Iowa who party all night Thursday won’t be sleeping all day Friday anymore. At least not if the university has its way.

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has decided to pay departments for switching classes to Friday, reports the Iowa City Press-Citizen. Departments that move at least two classes to Friday will get $20 for each student who enrolls in a switched class.

The incentive program is designed to cut down on the number of students who load up on classes earlier in the week and then get loaded on Thursday night, the Press-Citizen reported.

Has the university hit on a way to curb “Thirsty Thursdays” or just a recipe for empty classes? —Elyse Ashburn

Comments

1. It’s too sad the kids feel they have to drink like fish to fit in to a college world. But hey, if their parents didn’t raise them properly, it’s not the U.‘s job to do it. Let them get DUIs and flunk out of school — someone has to teach them life’s rules. Let it be the cops and the registrar’s office.

   — Sol Frank    Nov 12, 03:36 PM    #

2. It’s also too bad that some departments or faculty relinquish Fridays as a non-class day. Would that we all shared in the responsibility.

   — Dave    Nov 12, 03:44 PM    #

3. If you don’t live in close proximity to students who take full advantage of “Thirsty Thursday” opportunities to be drunk, loud and obnoxious, you’re missing a chance to really appreciate what Iowa is trying to do. I wish the campus I live near would try this idea!

   — Chris C    Nov 12, 03:47 PM    #

4. I had a MWF class that had pop quizzes on Fridays. This provided just enough incentive to make you read before going out, or waking early on Friday to read, to be prepared. Now a faculty member, I prefer MW only teaching—Iowa shows the financial incentives often needed for faculty.

   — LJ    Nov 12, 03:49 PM    #

5. Heaven forbid that the university and those who care about student well being take a small step to provide incentive to make responsible choices. How cowardly to attack the departments and faculty.

   — What students?    Nov 12, 03:49 PM    #

6. As a faculty member, it’s so helpful to have Friday as a non-class day to go to conferences and performances. I’d hate to give it up.

   — Music faculty    Nov 12, 03:52 PM    #

7. Gosh, the students would totally freak out if they had Saturday morning classes as I did!

   — Susan Robinson    Nov 12, 03:54 PM    #

8. Seems like a sure-fire reason to have online classes: drink anytime when U want and study anytime when U want.
   —Major Big 10 U that is not Iowa

   — Beauregard    Nov 12, 03:54 PM    #

9. “It’s so helpful to have Friday as a non-class day…I’d hate to give it up.” Are you kidding me? It is unfortunate that faculty view student interaction and service as an inconvenience.

   — What students?    Nov 12, 04:46 PM    #

10. I had classes at night and on weekends as well as at traditional times. I attended the U of I (GO HAWKS) and OU. (now a Sooner fanatic). “Thirsty Thursdays” were big and it was almost impossible not to have anything to do with them. Ever walk across campus where many of the students in residences, frat and sorority houses, and the common grounds was littered with drunk students?
    As a teacher, I prefer Fridays as a non-class day, but I teach 10 nursing students in a clinical setting for 10 hours each Friday. They don’t miss class. The invites are often handed around after Friday post conference.

    — jlamb    Nov 12, 04:53 PM    #

11. Classes offered 5 days a week? We better be careful or students might start to feel that attending 12-15 credit hours is comparable to a full-time job. Oh, wait…isn’t this the work ethic we are trying to instill. As Americans we are so married to the weekend starting on Friday it really has become unfortunate that we need to provide additional funding for incentive to teach on these days. With that said, I applaud Iowa for their efforts!

    — Scott    Nov 12, 05:20 PM    #

12. I commend the University of Iowa for its attempt to add Friday to the academic work week. Having said that, I fondly recall my days at Iowa State where we thought of Iowa as a place for party boys and girls and our university as a place for hard working men and women. It was there that I taught my first physics lab beginning at 8:00 am on Saturday morning.

    — Don Langenberg    Nov 12, 06:29 PM    #

13. I teach at a large commuter campus. On Tuesdays and Thursdays the campus is packed. Not so much so on MWF. We would get a better balance and have less crowding on TTh if we had MW classes with perhaps 3 hour seminars on Friday. And it would make better environmental sense to drive to campus 2 days a week rather than 3. But our administration beleives that we need to show that our facilities are being fully used on Friday — even though a glance at the parking lot would show that not to be the case— so the unbalanced scheduling continues.

    — Vince    Nov 12, 08:28 PM    #

14. How about a required course in ALC-101? Held at an off-campus lab patterned on the style of Pete’s Bar near Temple U., where, with low-decibel music and a pitcher of beer, students and ptofessors would talk after-hours about such topics as Blake and the Book of Ezekiel, existentialism, or the body image of the Middle Ages. (Alas, Pete’s became a parking lot.) Or, like the University of Montreal, Iowa could hold a late Friday afternoon reception for students, faculty, and public figures, with hors d’oeuvres amd a couple of glasses of wine for everyone. Prohibition made a mess of the U.S.A. almost a century ago, and its “pre-adult” version is making a similar mess of our young people today.

    — Margaret M. Dardis    Nov 12, 11:09 PM    #

15. “It is unfortunate that faculty view student interaction and service as an inconvenience.”
    ————————-
    These ARE inconveniences. Both barely contribute to my tenure and promotion, but take an eternity out of my schedule.

    — hgfjhfgg    Nov 13, 12:46 AM    #

16. I don’t know if this will help the excessive drinking on college campuses, but I do think universities need to help with the problem.

    I live near and work at a large Big 10 Institution. We have had two very tragic drunken driving instances in the last year that involved students as both drivers and victims.

    It is to the point that I seriously consider the risks before I venture out on the roads at any late hour. I fear for the lives of the students as well as my family, friends, and neighbors in this small community.

    — Julie    Nov 13, 06:06 AM    #

17. When I was in college, my business-major and ed-major roomies and friends started partying on Thursday afternoon. They didn’t schedule 8 am classes or Friday classes. They also didn’t do homework, but somehow they still cruised with As in all their classes. These weren’t options for science majors—we put in a full day of classes and labs 5 days a week and studied our butts off the rest of the time. We had seminar programs scheduled for Friday afternoons.

    Departments and colleges that have a policy of leaving Fridays set aside for faculty to do their consulting or performing jobs are insulting to those of us who consider working for the university to be a full-time job.

    Anyone whinging about actually having to teach on Fridays will get little sympathy here.

    — sci prof    Nov 13, 07:30 AM    #

18. I give quizzes every Friday.

    — s johnson    Nov 13, 08:07 AM    #

19. As we all know, working at a U is clearly more than full-time job. And as a Humanities prof, I well know that as I do it at half-time pay, when compared to the sciences. I don’t think Friday need be sacrosanct, but a two-day a week teaching schedule should be provided whenever possible so that, along with excellent teaching, we can fit in research and service on other days. If classes that could be were routinely scheduled twice a week—some MW, some TU, some WF—we’d all be happier. In addition, students take Friday more seriously when it’s one of two classes meetings rather than one of three per week.

    — Lisa    Nov 13, 08:16 AM    #

20. No wonder business leaders are complaining about the lack of preparedness of college graduates for the “real world” and shipping as many jobs as possible to foreign countries. The Center for Alcohol and Substance Abuse (CASA) also published a study last Spring that concluded that about 24% of American college students meet the medical criteria for either alcoholism or drug addiction. Thirsty Thursdays? Cool, man!

    — Ken    Nov 13, 09:17 AM    #

21. Students purposefully avoid scheduling classes on Fridays and mornings – there is partying every night of the week at many schools. Tuesdays was a big night at the Univ of FL when I was there…moving classes to Fridays will not “motivate” these party-types to curb their binging – they won’t sign up for them in the first place.

    — SMF    Nov 13, 09:51 AM    #

22. While scheduling classes on Friday (and actually expecting students to attend) is a great idea on paper, it will never fly.

    Why? The consumer-driven mantra that dominates our college culture. This idea will be discarded the second that deans have students complaining about their schedules and faculty get bad student evals for expecting students to show up on those days.

    — Just_me    Nov 13, 10:02 AM    #

23. A four credit class is four hours per week of class room time.

    Why should the Univeristy really care when that time is spent? There are many reasons for not wanting to take to take a class on friday.

    The ablity to work all day friday and saturday was important for me to pay for school.

    Also for students with family many find the friday-sunday block important for homework and family time.

    The University should balance the needs of students and not look to cause social reform.

    — bgill    Nov 13, 11:25 AM    #

24. College students should have the freedom to make their own schedules – both social and academic. The college experience is not just about academics, but also about learning how to be an ADULT. And that can mean making poor choices sometimes – and suffering the consequences. As educators, we should do what we can to ensure students’ safety – but that can only go so far. Do we want a generation of college graduates who have been coddled since kindergarten??? That’s not who I would want as a colleague or employee (or, heaven forbid, a boss!).

    — CE    Nov 13, 12:24 PM    #

25. I would suggest that no-school Friday is as much driven by faculty as students. And I got news for you, one of the best perks in a department is a “Tues/Thurs” gig…usually reserved for faculty nabobs. Anyone who’s had to schedule classrooms (a process driven solely by faculty requests) knows that the vast crush for rooms are for Tues/Wed/Thurs slots.

    — marci    Nov 13, 02:26 PM    #

26. I teach at a community college. This semester I’m teaching 6 classes; next semester I’ll be teaching 7. I’d love to see somebody cram that schedule into Tuesday and Thursday.

    — D.L.    Nov 14, 12:54 PM    #

27. Past experience in all areas show that you cannot dictate people’s behavior. Once again, everyone is punished for the deeds of the few. There are students who have jobs and work 2-3 days of the weekend and the like. Of course the studies will show decreased drinking on Thursdays (duh!!). But has the overall effect been reviewed. I think not.

    — MH    Nov 14, 01:38 PM    #

28. For the person who thinks 12-15 credit hours is not a full-time job, it certainly should be. 12-15 hours in class per week translates to roughly 24-30hrs/wk of studying, constituting a 36-45 hour work week. I went to classes as an Undergrad and & held office hours M-F as a Grad Student.

    — BBS    Nov 14, 01:58 PM    #

29. Class schedulers (administration) should schedule classes required for graduation or program completion on Fridays or Saturdays and faculty assigned to teach in order to achieve load. Problem solved!!

    — Charles Green    Nov 23, 03:17 AM    #

30. What has happened to the American work ethic? I can understand having a class-free Friday for those students who are working their way through school.

    — DLP    Nov 27, 09:52 AM    #

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