Class schedules changing in fall 2013

Traci Wall
The Signal
A new class rotation schedule grid has been created by UHCL’s enrollment management division.  It will go into effect fall 2013 in an effort to accommodate freshman and sophomore students expected to enroll in fall 2014.

Currently, UHCL primarily offers classes that meet one day a week for three hours. Schedule grids will change to include two- and three-days-a-week classes that will meet in one-and-a-half-hour and one-hour time blocks. Two- and three-days-a-week classes used for lower-level courses will be offered during the day, predominately in the morning.

“There is a lot of misunderstanding about what is going on,” said Yvette Bendeck, associate vice president of enrollment management.

Bendeck says that right now, schedule grid rules are not enforced for 43 classes. With the addition of freshmen and sophomore courses, classes will need to make the necessary changes to starting and ending times to be in-line with the new grid.

“We are enforcing starting times so that students are not blocked from taking other classes because class times overlap,” Bendeck said.

While the three-hour class times during the morning will still be an option in fall 2013, it can be expected that these will eventually disappear, Bendeck said.

Currently, 22 classes are scheduled during the day at UHCL. By changing class schedules, UHCL is able to meet the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s (THECB) expectations of classroom utilization as well as the criteria for space utilization, said Carl Stockton, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost.

“It is necessary to meet students’ expectations as well as to accommodate the best practices in teaching freshmen and sophomores,” Stockton said. “By having this new schedule, we will be able to accommodate the needs of both traditional and nontraditional students. Graduate classes and most upper level courses that are taught from 4-7 p.m. and 7-10 p.m. will remain the same.”

UHCL is expecting 200 freshmen and 100 sophomore students to enroll in 2014.

“The typical student at this school is a part-time student, part-time/full-time worker who most likely has a family,” said Carla Bradley SGA vice president. “Having a class just one day a week works out best for them.”

UHCL was originally designed to cater to the unconventional student.

“UHCL was founded as an open admissions university with a commitment to the highest quality in teaching,” said John Gorman, professor of literature and a charter member of the university. “From the start we welcomed ‘nontraditional’ students.  That tended to mean older people who had postponed or interrupted higher education when they were of traditional college age.  Such students had complicated, fully adult lives; and we carefully planned things with their tight schedules in mind.

“We soon found that the younger students, too, were often coming from lives with an array of obligations. For years everyone was a commuter – often from considerable distances. The three-hour classes met the needs of all and have been much appreciated.”

Shared governance is a big part of the university’s culture.

“I’m not at all happy that the rotation wasn’t brought before the whole faculty for discussion,” Gorman said.

Some faculty members are curious it see if all freshmen are going to be conventional recent high school graduates or if we will continue to attract nontraditional students, drawn here because of the one-day-per-week classes.

“Our identity, at its core, is a liberal arts institution committed to student excellence and sincere teaching,” said Shreerekha Subramanian, assistant professor of humanities. “We basically can teach our students to reach upward toward graduate school ways of learning rather than whittle our standards down. Incoming students, I believe, can adjust to an existing order of three-hour classes much more easily than we give them credit for.”

The School of Human Sciences and Humanities put together a subcommittee to look into this change.

“I would like to see the question of scheduling studied to determine its potential affect on student learning, course selection, attendance and retention,” said Chloe Diepenbrock, associate professor of writing and literature and chair of the subcommittee, looking into class rotation changes.

There are concerns that shorter class periods will be less productive for some disciplines, and that commute time and expense will create a hardship for students and adjunct faculty.

The new class schedules would have “a huge impact on student life and access to education,” said Kim Case, associate professor of women’s studies and psychology.

Case worries that the change will impose “limits on innovative teaching approaches that require longer class meetings.

Bendeck believes all students will benefit as a result of more efficient scheduling.

Just as this change is being made at UHCL, San Jacinto College, the university’s largest source of transfer students, has also made changes to its schedule grid. SJC now offers three-hour classes once a week as well as one-and-a-half-hour classes on a Monday/Wednesday or Tuesday/Thursday rotation in an effort to serve more nonconventional students.

Faculty Senate President Kathryn Ley encourages any faculty who wish to express their thoughts to contact their Faculty Senator.

Students may contact the Student Government Association regarding the changes.