Posted By Gettysburgian Staff on Mar 29, 2023 | 3 comments

By Alfredo Roman Jordan, Guest Columnist

During the height of the pandemic, my high school had no classes on Wednesdays. Instead, the day was dedicated to activities, clubs and school-wide gatherings. We would also wake up later and go home earlier, and it felt like a breath of fresh air. This was not just the case at my school; many other schools across the US adopted this model as they looked for ways to transition back into in-person learning. In fact, even the whole country of France has had Wednesdays free since the 19th century. This idea is not alien to the business field either, with many different companies doing a trial run of four day workweeks, including Amazon, Capital One and Shopify. If no class on Wednesdays were brought to Gettysburg, students would have more time in their week for out-of-class involvement and wellness, which the administration has been promoting this year. 

A four-day academic week would help students get more involved on campus. The average Gettysburg student is busy, burnt out and tired. We all have many assignments to turn in every week, and every second of our days is booked with clubs and organizations. In fact, according to a tour guide fact sheet, 80 percent of Gettysburg College students hold a leadership position at least once in their four years. Having no classes on Wednesday would allow students to dedicate time to club or organization meetings. This would open up on-campus involvement to students who might have conflicts between clubs and classes, allowing more students to be active in the community. 

Additionally, a four-day academic week would allow students to better manage their wellness and work-life balance. Most of us are very tired, and a day of rest in the middle of the week would be greatly appreciated as it would allow us to focus on our wellness and catch up on sleep. Apart from the improvement in our wellness, the work-life balance would be greatly improved, giving us an extra day to study and complete our homework, making all-nighters a thing of the past. 

The faculty would also benefit from this change. Having a day where they are free, but still getting paid, would help them have more time to plan lessons, grade papers or undertake their research. They could hold extra-long office hours on Wednesdays so that students would have greater ease in reaching out for help and an extra facility to help them keep Wednesdays productive. 

Having a day less of classes would mean increasing most Monday and Friday classes by just thirty minutes and allowing classes to have a similar schedule to Tuesday and Thursday classes. Students would never have two classes without a free day in the middle, allowing for less burnout from classes and increased creativity. 

Unfortunately, the idea of having no class on Wednesday has not been brought to Gettysburg yet, but I think applying this change would make us a trailblazing institution. It would lower transfer and dropout rates, increase learning and put us on the map. This change would increase students’ and faculty’s quality of life and it would allow for even greater levels of involvement on campus. Overall, a four-day academic week would be a positive change for Gettysburg College, its students and its faculty.