Getting an unexpected week off of school comes with a price.

Iona College announced that in order to make up for class time missed due to Hurricane Sandy, students may have to attend Saturday classes. The plan laid out by Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Brian Nickerson in an email to the Iona community includes the first two Saturdays in December as an option for professors to use as make up time.

New York State has requirements for accredited colleges and universities as to how much class time they must have. Iona has to make up 92 minutes of class time to meet these requirements. The Provost’s office, along with input from the Student Government Association, deans from both schools and academic advisers came up with a four point plan.

In addition to Saturday classes, the plan includes online class options as well as the guidelines for night classes and graduate programs.

Students, however, are not happy with the idea of coming in on a Saturday, many complaining that Saturday class would conflict with other commitments, mainly jobs.

Professors, who also have to come in on the two Saturdays, appear to have a more pragmatic view. “Make-up dates are really difficult to handle,” said Orly Shachar, an associate professor of mass communications. “There will always be a constituency that isn’t satisfied.”

The current plan was not the only one discussed. Another plan involved having class on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and moving finals back two days. There were online class options for this plan as well.

Junior Jaclyn Shearer, SGA president, was included in the decision making process.

“I give them a lot of credit for not making a decision without getting student input first,” she said, explaining that she supported the current make up schedule during the decision process.

“My reasoning was that people already have Thanksgiving plans and that adding two days to finals makes the online options useless because you have to stay anyway” she said. “It came down to the Blackboard options.”

Yet, the use of Blackboard or the makeup days seems to vary depending on the course. Some professors are opting to use internet resources while others are looking to take advantage of the extra class period on the scheduled Saturday.

When asked how he felt about having class on a Saturday, senior Timothy Montalvo said “None of my professors are using that, so I don’t have Saturday classes.”

“I think because we have the ability to do discussion boards and reach students in alternative forms we should take advantage of it,” Shachar said. “I want to serve the students’ best interest.”