Is Thursday the new Friday?

For Beth Eckels, the weekend begins on Thursday night.

The College sophomore has scheduled all of her classes from Monday to Thursday, which she says helps her balance studying with her social life.

For an increasing number of students, Thursday is turning into the end of the work week, and thus becoming "the new Friday."

While cramming classes into the first part of the week isn't a new phenomenon at Penn, some campuses across the country are trying to reclaim Fridays in the name of expanding course offerings.

And although Penn has no formal plan to increase Friday courses, administrators in the College of Arts and Sciences say more Friday classes could help resolve a midweek enrollment jam.

According to the Office of the Registrar, about 300 fewer classes are offered on Friday than Thursday. With around 900 scheduled classes, Thursday is the busiest day of the Penn week.

Students enroll overwhelmingly in classes that start betweem 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., said David Scheller, the University's assistant registrar.

This means many courses conflict, said Kent Peterman, director of academic affairs. Such overlap limits the variety of courses students can take, he added.

"There are lots of courses to choose from, but if they all meet at the same time, those aren't real choices," Peterman said.

But in offering earlier classes, professors compete with students' "weird circadian rhythms," Peterman said, adding that students are "up really late at night and they sleep really late in the morning."

Registration is a "buyer's market," he added, and professors "have to see what the students will buy."

Talk of expanding Friday offerings peaked when what is now Fisher-Bennett Hall closed for renovations, Peterman said. With the building's many classrooms unusable, some departments were forced to offer more classes outside of the 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. time block, he added.

But with the building's reopening this semester, the need for classroom space has lessened, and with it, the push to extend offerings on Fridays has dissipated as well, he said.

At some campuses, however, the call to reclaim Friday has already been heeded.

At Syracuse University, administrators added 76 classes after extending Friday offerings and bringing back 8 a.m. courses.

Sandra Hurd, Syracuse's associate provost, said Friday classes had almost disappeared after decades of students' avoiding them.

There was a "sentiment on the part of some faculty and a significant number of students that we were institutionalizing a three-day weekend," Hurd said, "and that's not what we're all about."

Two years ago, Duke University administrators also set out to increase Friday offerings. Now almost as many classes are offered on Fridays as on other days of the week, said Bruce Cunningham, Duke's registrar.

While avoiding Friday classes may strain Penn's schedule, administrators say this trend doesn't mean students are slacking off.

Anita Gelburd, assistant to the deputy provost, said she is "real hesitant to draw a causal relationship between partying on Thursday nights and cramming classes [into the] first half of the week.

"Once upon a time here, classes were offered at 8 a.m. on Saturdays," she said. "We don't do that anymore, and it's [still] perfectly possible to have a great academic experience."

For Eckels, having Fridays free reduces stress but is a little disorienting.

"Friday feels like Saturday, Saturday feels like Sunday, and then I just get really confused," she said.

"Going back to class on Monday, it's long enough that I feel like I'm getting a break," she said. She didn't feel this way when she had Friday classes during the first semester of her freshman year, she said.

Not all students are averse to Friday classes, however.

College freshman Ashley Goodman prefers to take classes which meet three times a week, even if the third session is on Fridays. She says she can concentrate better in classes that meet for an hour at a time than for classes that meet twice but for an hour and a half.

"I'd personally choose to take a class I've wanted to take even if it is on Friday," she added.

But Friday classes don't prevent her from relaxing on Thursday nights.

"I'll watch OC, read a fashion magazine," she said.

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