AIRAN SCRUBY
News Editor
Students may not have to worry about losing their class-free Wednesdays and Friday afternoons.
Last spring, the Seaver Faculty Association, with school administrators and division chairs, considered a change in Seaver College class scheduling to include primarily Monday, Wednesday, Friday classes and Tuesday, Thursday classes. The change would have meant that students would have heavier schedules on Wednesdays, and that most students would have class every day of the week.
According to Communication Division Chair Dr. Robert Chandler, the Seaver Cabinet decided the change would not be beneficial to the university at this time.
“The current class schedule format is more advantageous than would be the MUF-TRY format for students who are engaged in internships, athletics, co-curricular programs, and hold down employment,” Chandler said in an e-mail.
Concerns about the quality of class discussion under a revised schedule were also raised last spring and at subsequent meetings about the change. Under the new schedule, classes would have met for shorter time blocks, with more meetings per week.
Some professors said this would hinder class discussion and cater further to lecture-style classes.
“The twice a week-longer discussion time- schedule makes for extended class discussion and experiential learning activities,” Chandler said.
The change was expected to prove beneficial for some classes with shorter meeting periods or labs, like foreign language courses and natural science courses.
Associate Seaver Dean Rick Marrs said the change was considered because of a lack of classroom space, but that several faculty saw the changes as potentially detrimental to their class format and quality.
“As long as we can deliver the classes officially with our current schedule, we will make the current class delivery work,” Marrs said.
Dr. Randall Maddox, Natural Science professor and member of the Seaver Faculty Association’s Executive Committee, had been leading the discussion on the switch last spring.
Maddox said last year that the switch would eliminate overlapping class periods and provide more options for students.
Maddox is on leave this year, however, and is no longer heading the effort to explore the schedule change.
Chandler said that without leadership from Maddox, little was being done to advance the case for the change.
Most universities run on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Tuesday, Thursday schedule, called a 3/2 track, with classes beginning hourly.
To avoid conflicting classes within the schedule and to allow time for students to traverse campus between classes, the proposed system for Seaver College would have made courses 65 minutes long, with 15 minute breaks in between, so that classes would not always begin at the top of the hour.
The schedule would have also required that Convo schedules change, because Convo in the Fieldhouse at 10 a.m. on Wednesdays would interfere with classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
While the possibility of a schedule change still exists, Marrs said, he and Seaver Dean David Baird are now discussing whether to proceed with talk about the change. Marrs said a change now seems unlikely.
09-07-2006