Most significant among the changes is that all courses will now be scheduled to start on the hour. Courses will be distributed among two-hour blocks starting at odd-numbered hours (i.e. 9:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., etc.), and with some exceptions, will not be held across blocks. Departments will schedule their courses evenly across the scheduled blocks of time, and across days of the week. These two changes alone should alleviate some of the scheduling conflicts that have impacted students’ ability to enroll in the courses they need to graduate in a timely manner.
“These changes are made as part of our ongoing effort to raise graduation rates,” said Provost Snyder. “The Scheduling Working Group’s efforts have the potential to make a real difference in students’ ability to enroll in the courses they need and to succeed here at Humboldt State.”
A recent survey of students revealed that nearly one quarter rated course scheduling as poor. Many students expressed frustration about the difficulty of scheduling all the necessary courses, as many upper division classes are held at the same time. With student success a top priority for Humboldt State, Provost Snyder established a Scheduling Working Group to recommend changes to course scheduling at Humboldt State.
“Your charge is to research, develop and recommend a scheduling approach that maximizes students’ ability to make timely progress to graduation,” Snyder wrote in his message to the group.
The Scheduling Working Group, comprised of staff, faculty and administrators from the colleges and Enrollment Management, looked at scheduling practices at a range of institutions from CSU Chico to Duke University, and consulted with members of the Registrar’s office at Oregon State University which recently adopted a new scheduling regime. The group also held meetings across campus to ensure representation of varying viewpoints and needs.
As this process is implemented for the 2013/2014 school year, its impact will be evaluated by the Working Group for improvement.
The Scheduling Working Group’s report which outlines the changes in more detail, and has a series of FAQs is available here (pdf):
http://bit.ly/127i1PP