There’s an old adage, “longer is better,” that is often misapplied or incorrect. When it comes to the length of Introduction to the Humanities (IHUM) sections, however, longer truly is better.

Last year’s IHUM self-study evaluated student input from five informal focus groups, 1,283 online survey respondents and a number of IHUM professors and Teaching Fellows. The study noted many students’ grievances with the 90-minute sections and recommended that the IHUM Governance Board “delete the stipulation of 90-minute discussion groups.” Following this recommendation, this year’s IHUM courses were trimmed from five to four units and now have two 50-minute discussion sections per week. This reduction, however, is detrimental to students and to the program’s stated goal of the “development of diverse analytical and critical skills for interpretation of primary texts.”

The most obvious reason why shortening discussion sections negatively impacts the IHUM experience is a matter of “too much material, not enough time.” The readings remain as long as ever, and when a student knows that most of what he read outside of class will not be covered in section, he experiences little incentive to complete the reading. If a student is expected to read a 60-page Supreme Court case or an entire treatise on political philosophy, he should have more than 50 minutes to discuss the myriad issues that a close reading of the text inevitably produces.

Often, sections become animated as a student seizes upon a particular issue and pursues it. This is precisely the point of such discussion groups, and to restrict discussion to a strict agenda is harmful. It is unfortunate that the new time limitations prohibit both this free-ranging discussion and the ability to bring up more than a few points in pages and pages of reading material.

Already, many students, believing it unnecessary to work as hard in a “fuzzy” class as in a “techie” course, skim or ignore the reading. Limiting time to discuss the reading appears to further devalue the importance of the close textual analysis IHUM hopes to teach.

There are, of course, objections to longer section periods, and the opposition was strong enough to lead to this year’s restructuring. These objections fall into two categories: logistical and personal.

Logistically, the 90-minute IHUM sections do present scheduling problems, as many other classes have 50-minute periods and thus conflict with IHUM. However, the sheer quantity of classes at Stanford enables students to construct a schedule with longer sections. Alternatively, introducing three 50-minute sections would not cause such schedule conflicts. Others complain about the inflexibility imposed on a freshman’s schedule by the mandatory IHUM and Program in Writing and Rhetoric (PWR) classes and the expansion of chemistry and economics core classes to two quarters. However, the vast majority of time in college is not spent in class, and a mere additional hour per week would not significantly decrease flexibility; IHUM courses have been scheduled in an attempt to avoid conflict with large lectures such as introductory chemistry and economics. The concern that IHUM takes up too large a portion of an incoming freshman’s schedule, especially those in majors requiring many prerequisites, is, perhaps, addressed by downscaling the course to four units, but that need not bear on a single hour of section per week.

The more personal reasons for shortening IHUM sections — that the discussions became boring and unproductive — are the unfortunate byproducts of IHUM’s mandatory status and the course’s stigma as unnecessary and difficult for those who aren’t already talented writers. Allowing more class time would encourage students to prepare for class and do the reading, leading to more stimulating discussions and decreasing boredom.

IHUM, as last year’s self-study revealed, is generally achieving its educational goals of sharpening critical thinking and aiding freshman in transitioning to a college level. It has its supporters and detractors in both humanities and more technically oriented students. The decision to shorten section times does little to change scheduling flexibility issues and discourages students from engaging completely with the texts in and out of class. For this reason, IHUM sections should once again be 90 minutes (or possibly expanded to include three 50-minute sections). Turns out that old adage is right after all.

Zev Karlin-Neumann ‘11 and Riaz Rahim ‘08 are both members of The Daily’s Editorial Board.