March has come to a close, and fall registration has officially opened once again. But this year brings a significant change: Ripon College has introduced a new block schedule, meaning students will need to pay closer attention than ever to their course time options.
Last fall, the Educational Policy Committee (EPC) formed an ad hoc group to explore the creation of a new course grid, one that would better structure the academic day by consolidating class times into clearer blocks and opening up space for meetings, practices, and support services. Unlike the previous schedule, which often left little flexibility during the day, the proposed block system is designed to create more consistent, predictable time slots for both classes and co-curricular activities.
The current/active grid has become a point of contention among professors, students, and staff, largely because it makes it difficult to hold club meetings during the day and limits student-athletes’ ability to participate in tutoring or other organizations outside their sport. In a Student Senate meeting held on Dec. 3, Dean John Sisko, Professor Jean Rigden, and Ripon College baseball coach Eric Cruise supported the notion that a change was needed to the block schedule system at Ripon College for the sake of modernity and to alleviate issues with the current grid.
On Feb. 3, the Faculty Policy Committee advanced two votes on the new block schedule to be instituted in the fall 2026 academic semester. According to Sisko in an interview with College Days, “The first [vote] was approval of changing the grid rather than keeping the existing grid: 38 voted for change, 12 voted to keep the existing grid, and 4 abstained. The second vote was whether to select Option A or Option B: 8 voted for Option A, while 44 voted for Option B.”
Above: Pictured are the proposed grids, A and B. B will be going into effect Fall Semester, 2026.
The proposed block schedule was initially delivered to the Student Senate on Dec. 3 in 12 separate drafts/ideas. As Sisko stated, according to the Dec. 3, 2025 Student Senate Minutes, “Fundamentally, 90% of the colleges in this country have a Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Tuesday, Thursday class schedule. We are trying to get toward that sort of model.”
Sisko later explained to the College Days the reasoning of the switch.
“The new schedule provides 11 meeting times during the week, while the old schedule provided only nine,” Sisko said. “The old schedule contained a peculiar slot in which a course would meet on Tuesday early morning and Thursday late morning. This meeting slot was unpopular. The new grid offers Monday, Wednesday, and Friday meeting times, and also Tuesday/Thursday meeting times… On the old schedule, owing to a history of exceptions, some Thursday classes ran to 5 p.m. On the new schedule, all daytime courses are complete no later than 4p.m.”
Above: Figure C of the Old Model
Many student representatives asked questions about the intent of the change and questions about the pros and cons of switching to a different course grid, as Sisko presented the new schedule formally to the Student Senate on March 25. On the nature of music ensembles, class of 2028 representative John Kakuzi inquired about how many classes are outside of the confirmed grid.
“The core schedule you’ve been looking at for registration conforms with the grid,” Sisko said on March 25 in Student Senate. “The only areas where we’re really outside of the grid are evening, music, ensembles, and choruses, and then many of the science labs take up two blocks, inherently, because labs are typically three hours… I received…so every course that’s not on the grid has to come to me for approval. There were 40 of them. At first, I was really taken back. There were 40 requests to go off the grid. Thankfully, 18 were for music, for all of their evening things, which we were never gonna change anyway.”
But with this model, a few questions still remain to be answered, such as how certain on-campus jobs will be affected. However, only time will tell the positive and/or negative consequences of this switch. Until then, attendees of Ripon College will have to wait for the Fall of 2026.
