Policy eliminates hour of class time for assembly
A new school-wide policy will reserve the hours from 12-1:15 p.m. every Tuesday and Thursday for guest speakers, faculty meetings and other student convocations.
Effective Fall 2012, classes will no longer be offered at those times in order to accommodate common hour.
The policy was proposed by public relations and speech communication dual-major Jo Olsen who served as last year’s ASUSU arts and lectures director. Olsen said he felt it was unfair that student fees went to activities they couldn’t attend, and the policy is intended to make it easier for students to take advantage of programming events.
Olsen said the bill met a fair amount of resistance as he’s presented it to various faculty and administration.
Many faculty and administration members expressed concern that students would not want to rearrange their schedules to make room for the common hour, he said.
“My concern was just giving them enough information to make an educated decision on it,” Olsen said.
He said while he was not able to poll the entire student body for feedback, he met with members of the faculty senate and asked them to share the idea with their respective committees.
“Almost every senator came back with the unanimous vote that it was a positive thing that the students wanted,” Olsen said.
He said he spoke with students around campus who gave him positive feedback about the idea.
“So whenever I heard faculty or administration say that the students didn’t want it, I just shared that with them,” he said.
Another concern, Olsen said, was scheduling classes and classrooms to accommodate the common hour.
Political science department head Roberta Herzberg said with limited classroom availability, there is already a struggle to schedule classes during the best times.
“Last term, dozens of Tuesday/Thursday classes had no room during registration and many had to be moved to 7:30 a.m. or 4:30 p.m.,” she said. “Unfortunately, when we move them, registration and attendance fall off significantly and students complain.”
She said in light of increased enrollment and no new classroom space in sight, department heads were frustrated with the removal of one of the most critical time slots.
“The result will be more classes at ‘unpopular’ hours or students having to stay an extra term to complete all of their program. I fear that when students realize the tradeoffs, they will be unhappy with this decision,” Herzberg said.
Olsen said, “My answer to that is just that working with John Mortensen, the registrar, he had people on his staff come up with a mock-up. A lot of hours were spent trying to see if it was actually even a reality and they came back with a definite yes.”
Mortensen said he and his office determined that by changing some class times to 7:30 a.m. or later in the afternoon, accommodating the common hour would be possible.
“That does not take into effect what would happen in reality with departments or instructors maybe not willing to teach at that time,” Mortensen said. “It had no human factor in it at all, it was just all things being consistent – the same course offerings, the same numbers – could it be done? Yes, it could be.”
Mortensen said, “There’s gonna be all kinds of decisions. Departments are going to have to have their input. Students are going to have to be able to put their schedules together accordingly.”
Olsen also said he felt some faculty were hesitant because the common hour would change their teaching schedules.
“There’s nothing I can really say to that,” he said. “If they have concerns about having to switch up when they teach, there’s really no way to refute that. It’s true. But I just feel that it’s an important enough thing to have happen.”
Assistant Provost Michelle Larsen said the Provost’s office was supportive of the idea, and now that the policy has been approved, the registrar’s office and faculty will review the schedule together to make sure it will work for everyone.
Olsen said he will be meeting with the department heads collectively to further discuss the policy.
“Even though they don’t have a vote on it, they felt the need to hear more about it ‘cause they have some concerns with it,” Olsen said.
“In terms of voting,” Herzberg said, “I do not think it is a matter of having a vote, but instead is about making decisions without all of the information needed.”
Herzberg said if a common hour needed to be created, 3:30 or 4:30 p.m. might be a better time.
She said low attendance is more about the increasingly busy lives of students than it is about the current class schedule.
“If this is correct,” she said, “the University will have just made a very costly decision in terms of scheduling, without changing the attendance outcome significantly. I hope that this is not the case.”
– ropjepson@live.com