Elise Stiemsma–Staff Writer  

Starting in the Fall of 2024 Dordt University class schedules are undergoing a time shift. All classes will begin at 8:10 a.m. instead of 8:00 a.m. Registrar Jim Bos said an updated schedule has been in the works for the past few years to accommodate the need for more class time. 

“We only have finite facilities on campus, and you can’t build more classrooms at the snap of your fingers. We needed to find a way to make adjustments without major disruptions,” Bos said.  

With growing enrollment, Dordt needs to offer more class blocks, especially for core classes. Currently, there are more than ten empty classrooms at 8 a.m. Bos discovered they wouldn’t need to make a new class time block if he could find more faculty and students to fit in the first period of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. He had many renditions of what a possible new schedule could look like but decided that a shift of ten minutes would be all that was necessary to fix ongoing conflicts. 

For many students, this slight change is daunting, as any change to the schedule affects extracurriculars. Even so, students like junior nursing student Nia Hoekstra are confident the change will be navigable.  

“I feel like we can get used to it. It’s a change. I don’t know if it’s positive or negative yet, but I’m open to trying it,” Hoekstra said. 

Many student athletes, alongside former athletic director Ross Douma, requested this change because of early morning lifts and practices.  

Shifting back by ten minutes allows the possibility for these students to take early morning classes. It allows students to get breakfast or shower before having to rush to class. Even for the average student, the new class period offers a larger allowance for getting a quick bite from the commons before class. 

“Ten more minutes of sleep is a blessing,” said Hoekstra. After a long day of clinicals on Tuesdays and Thursdays, this additional time is helpful for nursing students like Hoekstra to get going the next morning.  

Another factor for the change was the availability of faculty members. Dr. Abby Foreman, dean of social sciences, is one of five faculty members that have decided to move their class to fill the 8:10 a.m. block. For Foreman and other professors with children,  

getting their kids to school and arriving at Dordt promptly at 8 a.m. to teach can be a challenge. These extra minutes make school mornings a little easier.  

“I was happy to see this change as a faculty member. Even though ten minutes doesn’t seem like a lot, it’s enough to take some of that intensity off,” Foreman said.  

Bos said Dordt currently looks at this as a long-term change, but times could adjust again after new classrooms and a new commons space are built. An updated schedule template with the changes is listed on the Registrar’s page at u.dordt.edu.