Story by Logan Tromp, Opinion Columnist
Early Thursday morning on February 8th an email arrived in the inboxes of Aquinas Students. It was a message from the Student Senate informing students that the Faculty Assembly will be voting on a complete transition to the Block Schedule that may be in effect for all Freshman and Sophomores Fall 2025. The block model is currently being piloted by Freshman right now, but the notion of a complete transition to the block schedule has been a surprise for many. There are many questions in the air about how the program will be implemented if it comes to pass.
One of the biggest problems with the block schedule is the format itself and the lack of information on how half the college transitioning to it would look. The block schedule format would not work with a variety of classes and majors. For example, any foreign language major will be hurt detrimentally by this change. What if they take Spanish 201 their first block at the start of the semester and Spanish 202 is only offered the last block of the second semester? How will that information be retained? Complicated subject matter requires spaced repetition to truly learn and retain the information that is being taught; the block schedule is the exact opposite of this. Students majoring in sciences will also be at a disadvantage. Days with a lab may require 4-5 hours in the classroom. Imagine trying to learn a semester of Anatomy & Physiology in three and a half weeks.
What about classes that are one and two credits? Will these classes be unavailable for Freshman and Sophomores? Or will they be offered on top of the current block class? A lot of kinesiology classes will not fit into this block schedule format as they are not all four credit courses. What will a Freshman who is majoring in music or art do? Will they have the opportunity to take fine arts classes or be forced to try to get their gen-eds out of the way for two years, so they can cram their major classes for the remaining two years?
The block schedule is not all bad, but it is not very fleshed out, which is concerning to say about a program that could be implemented for all Freshman and Sophomores. If more information is given to the students, then alarm bells might stop ringing. Until then, we can give our opinion in the survey and leave it up to the faculty to make a decision.
The Saint 