Student-athletes must often choose between missing class and attending practice because of an archaic regulation, which mandates that courses longer than an hour and a half cannot be held before 1 p.m. on most weekdays.

According to FAS Registrar Michael P. Burke, the current schedule has not been updated in more than 70 years, when both the size of the undergraduate population and the number of course offerings were considerably smaller than they are today.

Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Government Department Cheryl B. Welch said that in  large departments like Government, which currently has 484 concentrators, student demand necessitates a greater number of course offerings and time slots.

Welch, whose department  began requiring students from the Class of 2015 onward to take at least one two-hour Government 94 seminar as a result of a comprehensive departmental review, approached Dean of Undergraduate Education Jay M. Harris two years ago with a proposal to offer “non-compliant” seminars in the morning. The decision was, in part, to assuage athletes’ constrained time schedules.

“Scheduling all seminars in the popular 2-4 [p.m.] or 4-6 [p.m.] time slots may pose a hardship for some students,” Welch wrote in an email. “We hope to be able to continue to spread seminars out in a more expansive grid that includes some morning and evening choices.”

Consequently, Welch said, Harris allowed the department to “experiment” with seminar times, which led to the offering of two morning seminars last fall and three this semester.

According to Harris, he approved of the proposal due to the department’s large number of concentrators. To his knowledge,  no other department offers required seminars at “non-compliant times.”

While athletes concentrating in government have expressed gratitude for this bending of the rules, those in other concentrations wish more exceptions would be allowed for their departments.

Mensah said when he and some teammates were considering Social Studies, they realized the concentration’s mandatory tutorial times conflicted with their practice schedule in the fall. Ultimately, none of them chose to pursue social studies.

“You’ve sort of eliminated a whole sport in terms of a concentration,” Mensah said. “That’s definitely an area that could use some work.”

Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Economics Department Jeffrey A.  Miron said that the College’s current schedule is “sort of a mess.”

“I do have the impression that the current Harvard scheduling rules have made life kind of difficult,” he said, noting that like Government, the Economics Department tries to offer as many course options as possible to accommodate students.