With the introduction of the new schedule, most students on campus now have 10 minutes—instead of five, as in past years—between back-to-back classes. However, more than 50 students have a five-minute interchange between certain classes, and at least 15 have no time between two of their classes, according to class rosters. Due to Thursday’s weather emergency, the Office of the Registrar could not release the exact number of students who are affected by these shorter passing periods.

According to information from the Office of the Registrar, classrooms were selected in a manner intended to accommodate students who have these zero- or five-minute interchanges.

The schedule for this semester represents phase one of a multiple-phase plan proposed by the Curriculum Implementation Committee and a working group that convened more than two years ago.

An administrative source familiar with the ongoing work on the schedule declined to comment on the record but explained that the main priority of phase one was to introduce ten-minute passing periods to as many students as possible.

The goals of phase two are to encourage faculty to teach a more varied range of timeslots and pattern of days across the week, specifically making better use of Fridays. Phase two will also try to synchronize the class schedule across days to reduce the amount of overlap between classes.

The Office of Academic Affairs has also been encouraging faculty to start and end on time and is working to synchronize clocks across campus.