Angelina Persaud, Senior Writer
Dean of Kakos School of Arts and Sciences (KSAS) Marcy Kelly, Ph.D., held a student town hall on Feb. 11 to review the new block schedule draft, which includes an extended common period for commuters.
The new changes to the block schedule are expected to take effect in the spring 2026 semester, with some minor changes to language labs being implemented as soon as the fall 2025 semester.
On Jan. 23, an email was sent from the Office of the Provost to announce that an ad hoc committee had been created, which consisted of students and faculty representatives, to propose new changes that they wanted to see in the block schedule.
“The ad hoc committee sought community feedback via a survey and determined that our current block schedule was not meeting all of the needs of the community,” the email stated. “The ad hoc committee used the feedback they received from the survey to inform the development of a new proposed block schedule.”
Kelly explained that the need to revise the current block schedule system was due to scheduling conflicts with two-hour block classes. If a science course was slated to run for two hours but there was no two-hour block available, professors had to schedule into other three-hour class blocks.
“I ran into this problem with faculty who were trying to schedule courses,” Kelly said. “The current block schedule doesn’t have two-hour blocks or four hour blocks, and some of our courses are two hours. So what ended up happening was faculty who taught two hours, like the science courses, because there’s no such block, they would have to schedule off of the block, [and] schedule in a three hour spot.”
The new draft of the block schedule includes an extended two-hour common period at 3:30pm on Tuesdays, whereas it previously began at 12:30pm. There is also an additional 75-minute common hour at 2:30pm on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This change specifically arose from the concerns of students who had a larger gap after 12:30pm but wanted to participate in activities that began at 2:30pm and still make it to class in the 3:30pm block.
“We decided we needed to move that common [time] down to 2:30 with the stipulation that there’s a class period right after it at 3:30,” Kelly said. “Students could take the class afterwards, stay on campus and participate in any activities we have during the 2:30 common hour.”
Kelly also announced that there was a desire for students to have at least one day off of campus during the week to fulfill other obligations outside of class.
“Everybody expressed a desire to have one day off campus,” Kelly said. “Off campus doesn’t necessarily mean not working. Off campus means perhaps doing an internship or a job.”
Michael Mulrooney, executive director of Jasper Central, explained further that the extended common times would be more convenient for the commuter population on campus to allow them to participate in activities without a longer, burdensome gap between classes.
“In terms of the common period that we were looking for, we wanted a period that was later in the day, that also allowed enough time to have sections for commuter students and residential students,” Mulrooney said. “[Gaps that] weren’t burdensome and put that much of a break in between your schedule, allowed you to participate in on campus events during this common period, and still have classes afterwards at a common time.”
Kelly also noted that there was a desire to change the current Monday and Wednesday and Tuesday and Friday schedule for 75 minute classes to a Monday and Thursday and Tuesday and Friday schedule.
“There would be two days in between each class session to allow students time to complete any necessary work for those courses,” Kelly said.
Additionally, to accommodate the day off campus request, 50-minute classes would run on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday instead of Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The new block schedule model is based off of the one adopted by Drexel University, who has seen success with the changes.
“To meet the criteria that everybody would love to have a day off campus, compared to Drexel’s schedule, we flipped Thursday and Friday,” Kelly said.
However, to allow for the two-hour extended common period on Tuesday, there would have to be a shift in the time for 75-minute classes that ran on Tuesday and Friday. Namely, the Friday classes would have a different start time at 3:30pm and Tuesday class would begin at 2pm.
Mulrooney commented that the main reason for the shifts is to keep students engaged with the activities occurring on campus while allowing them adequate time to attend classes during the day.
“Is there a better time that would engage students and have you continue to participate in some of those [activities]?,” Mulrooney said. “That’s a big piece of what we’re going to do is, again, allow interaction, not only with each other, but with some of the great academic pieces that we have here.”
Cassidy Recio, a former commuter student, expressed her concern over the lack of available lounge space for commuters during the prolonged gap periods prior to the proposed changes. She explained that having more common areas for commuters while they have a gap on campus would be crucial to a productive school life balance.
“The library gets, even early in the morning, so crowded,” Recio said. “If we’re gonna do spaces, at least have consideration of commuters because I have to spend hours trying to find a spot. If I was not there at 9am in my same spot, it was impossible for me to just look for a single space to be with my friends too.”
Kelly emphasized that regardless of the changes, she and the rest of the ad hoc committee are continuously seeking student feedback to determine what changes will make their experience at Manhattan University the most effective.
“One of the things that we really wanted for this block schedule is to be student centered,” Kelly said. “That’s the priority here. We need to make sure that all of the needs for students inside and outside of the classroom are met, regardless of whether they’re residential or commuter students.”