Phil Wood might become the bane of party-loving college students across the nation.

At least one university will change its Friday course schedule to deter Thursday binge drinking, a response in part to recommendations in a recent University of Missouri-Columbia alcohol study. Several other higher education institutions are considering adjusting their schedules as well.

The MU psychology professor doesn’t seem to mind.

"And it’s all MU’s fault, huh?" said Wood, lead researcher in the study. "Yes, guilty as charged."

MU researchers surveyed 3,341 MU undergraduates through their four years of college, from 2002 to 2006, and discovered that students with no classes on Friday or classes starting after noon drank almost twice as much as those with class on Friday morning.

Among other suggestions, the study recommended that colleges require students to enroll in classes before 10 a.m. on Fridays.

Before MU released its study in June, the U.S. Surgeon General released a report in March advising colleges and universities to "reinstate Friday classes to shorten the elongated weekend."

Campuses across the nation have or are thinking about shifting some classes to Friday morning.

MU isn’t one of them.

Campus spokesman Christian Basi said no changes have been made since Wood and collaborators Ken Sher and Patricia Rutledge of MU’s Midwest Alcoholism Research Center released their study. "We’re not thinking about changing it because we already use it," Basi said.

MU has as many classes at 8 a.m. on Friday as it does on Monday and Wednesday, Basi said, and MU uses 95 percent of its classroom space at 9 a.m. on Friday. "We are near capacity for our classes as it is," he said.

At the University of Iowa, some classes that require attendance or that a large number of entering students take will shift to Friday mornings starting in the fall semester of 2008, Provost Tom Rocklin said, adding that the changes are taking place after years of consideration.

"The thing that pushed us over the edge was the" MU "study," Rocklin said. "I think the study contains pretty compelling evidence that Friday classes help to reduce the amount of Thursday binge drinking."

Rocklin said Iowa will be working to finalize its plan in the next month or so. "There aren’t any silver bullets for reducing a drinking problem like ours," Rocklin said.

Princeton Review ranked Iowa 12th on its list of 20 top party schools for 2008. Missouri didn’t make the list.

"It’s actually a good message to send to students," Rocklin said of discouraging binge drinking. "Being a full-time student is like having a full-time job."

Iowa isn’t alone. Wood said the University of Maryland, University of Mississippi, Loyola University in Chicago, Framingham State College in Massachusetts, Southern Methodist University and Penn State University all have expressed interest in changing their Fridayschedules as well.

"It becomes a rich part of the debate," said Doug Sullivan-Gonzalez, dean of the McDonnell-Barksdale Honors College at the University of Mississippi. "The study is certainly very convincing."

Sullivan-Gonzalez said the University of Mississippi just implemented recommendations from a university and community alcohol task force and will re-evaluate its situation in a year. "Missouri’s contribution is going to weigh in heavily," he said. "It’s powerful ammunition."

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