BATON ROUGE, La. – Southern University is switching to a four-day class week in January by doing away with Friday courses.
Chancellor James Llorens told The Advocate of Baton Rouge the university is making the switch to save on utility costs in buildings and to free up more time on Friday for student advising and faculty office hours.
“It’s more of a four-day class schedule than a four-day workweek,” Llorens said, emphasizing that employees will still work on Fridays.
The decision would make Southern the first public university in Louisiana to condense classes to four days year round.
Some universities in the state though do have four-day schedules with no classes after noon on Friday.
“The students think it’s a great idea,” Llorens said. “I think you’ll see more institutions starting to move to it.”
The change is made by lengthening classes on Mondays and Wednesdays. Those 50-minute classes will be extended to one hour and 20 minutes each, which is the same as how most classes operate on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
