Working on Friday is so passe for some people, just not those at N.C. State.

Utah shifted most of its state employees to a four-day work week, in order to save gas and energy. Brevard Community College in Cocoa, Florida saved $267,000 over a year long period by closing down Fridays, and turning down the air-conditioning and heating in the buildings.

In the Triangle, Wake Tech Community College will try a four-day week starting May 18 for summer sessions. The college hopes to save $100,000 just by closing down on Fridays. Many class offerings at NCSU are either Monday and Wednesday only or Tuesday and Thursday only, but the University is not entertaining the idea of cutting Friday classes.

Jim Martin, faculty senate chair, said the topic of a four-day week has not come up yet, and he doubts that it will.

“It wouldn’t really save much energy. Just the process of shutting down and restarting is energy consuming,” Martin said. “Also, four-day weeks wouldn’t work on a university level. Research facilities are always running seven days a week. Unless we’re looking at a major shut-down, like over the holidays, the effect wouldn’t be significant.” 

David Dean, sustainability outreach coordinator, agreed that the University will not majorly benefit from a day off, but he said all options should be under consideration in this economic climate.

“NCSU is unique in that we have a campus with about 461 buildings over a lot of acreage,” he said, “Even if we close Fridays, Mondays and Wednesdays will go well into the nighttime, which means more electricity, and 60 percent of our energy bill comes from electricity.” 

Dean says that the University is looking for other ways to save energy and money — Bragaw Residence Hall will be switched fully to LED lights this summer. The Office of Energy Management is also currently interviewing for a program manager to help reduce the campus’ energy footprint in the community. Buildings Maintenance and Operations, a department of Facilities, is exploring ways to reduce the cost coming out of each building.

“Many of these adjustments could be costly, but will eventually pay off with energy savings,” Dean said. “The bottom-line is if we can’t shut down all the systems of a building, we will not attain the desired savings.  We have to find other ways to reduce our energy consumption and we welcome any and all ideas.”

Anita Bardwell, informational officer for the Department of Chemistry said switching to a four-day student week will significantly change lab schedules.

“We have about 1400 freshman students to run through labs, and it simply is not possible to do that without Fridays,” Bardwell said. “We’ll be looking at tired TA’s working long hours, and when people are tired, they make stupid mistakes. Accidents happen.”  

Philip Brown, director of undergraduate studies, also said a four-day lab week would have a large impact.

“You have to look at [the] physical time slots labs are available. We have a large number of service labs constantly in use because so many students have a lab component to their courses,” he said.

With such a large number of lab-oriented courses on campus, Brown said four days may not provide enough time for all of them.

“Most labs run in two- to three-hour sessions. In between that time, as well as before and after, the TA’s need time to prepare,” Brown said.

Like Dean, Brown said the University is doing other things to reduce costs.

“We have a new hood-system that brings in air from the outside versus heated air from inside the building, here in Dabney….those [are] going to save us a lot of energy in the future.”    

As departments, like the Chemistry department, experiment with ways to cut energy costs, the rest of the University is cutting classes and faculty to meet the 5 percent permanent budget reduction standards set by the Chancellor’s Office.

Chiandi Patel, a senior in Biochemistry, said the way classes are spaced across a five-day week can been a hindrance, since she loses time during breaks between classes. Having classes concentrated between Monday and Thursday, she said, would  be helpful.

“It gets really hard to coordinate time when you have an hour gap between each class. All that time walking back and forth, sitting around and waiting adds up. I have an on-going research project that needs my attention, and two volunteering commitments to look after, if I can have an extra day to work with, I won’t feel so overwhelmed with everything,” she said.

Justus Robertson, a senior in computer science, agreed and said 50-minute classes don’t afford him enough time to learn.

“Throughout my seven semesters at N.C. State, I have always attempted to create a four day schedule. Not only does a Friday class force me to commute an extra day, but it’s always for a fifty minute Monday/Wednesday/Friday class that could easily be condensed to a seventy-five minute Monday/Wednesday format,” he said.