According to the Student Athletic Advisory Committee (SAAC), the free period from 12:20 to 1:45 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays isn’t really free.

On April 10, SAAC met to discuss its plans to propose a shift from the current free period time to 4 to 6 p.m. on the same days. The earliest the committee cited for this to take place, in their opinion, would be fall 2008 because the fall 2007 schedule has already been compiled.

“I believe the best bet for SAAC to get this proposal approved is to satisfy three demographics: students, faculty and administration,” SGA President-elect Jackie Morrison said. “For the students, SAAC should work with SGA to present to the student body and the student government executive board. It will probably have to go up for a student/campus-wide vote. Faculty should approve or disapprove through faculty assembly, and administration through dean’s council. If all three of those bodies approve, you’re likely to see it instituted on campus.”

SAAC’s main concern was the rising number of late afternoon classes causing time conflicts for both student athletes and the general student body.

For the fall 2006 semester, 224 classes started at or after 4 p.m., while 555 started before 4 p.m., with the class day commencing at 8 p.m. at the earliest. The highest total for any timeslot was 149, during the night class starting time of 6 p.m.

“Not only do student-athletes have problems setting up classes due to time conflicts, the student body in general has a hard time being full participants in clubs and organizations,” SAAC Co-President Greg Pyszczynski said. “It’s not fair when some professors say, ‘Be this major, don’t play athletics.’ A lot of people come to this school because they want to be student-athletes. They like the academic programs available, but also want to be involved in other activities such as sports and clubs as well.”

The proposal also cited problems for some clubs. SGA Assembly, Student Activities Board and Teddi Committee all meet at 9:30 during Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.

“Some clubs just have a hard time meeting during the day and free period is often taken up by other activities,” SAAC Co-Chair Blaise Faggiano said. “Some other colleges such as Springfield College, Muhlenburg College and Brockport State have all developed similar late afternoon formats and have been pretty successful.”

The other solution that SAAC considered was working with the deans of majors that consistently have late afternoon classes.

“I think the major problem we’re seeing here is not necessarily that there is all afternoon classes, but the fact that there’s only one section of some classes being offered and people aren’t getting any other options,” Faggiano said. “The problems could probably be fixed by having more classes in the morning without making changes to the free period.”

On April 19, SAAC will invite the entire campus to a discussion entitled “SAAC presents a discussion on class scheduling with co-curricular activities.” The aim of this discussion is to have an open forum for both students and faculty to discuss this proposal.

“We’ve always have had a lot of help from faculty on recruitment days,” Faggiano said. “We hope that they will come out and support this idea as well.”