Director of Academic Scheduling Answers Faculty Council Questions Regarding Schedule Preference Survey

Members of the Faculty Council posted these questions to Nicole Mabine, Director of Academic Scheduling, regarding the Schedule Preference Survey. Her answers follow each question.

Q: Time options do not include options for longer time period courses: e.g., studio art classes which are normally 3 hours per class meeting (six hours for one-day/week scheduled classes). How does faculty address this issue? 

 

A: The survey includes time blocks and not actual course lengths. The courses are assigned the traditional blocks. We can work on the language being a bit more clear.

 

Q. The times for classes overlap, which seems to be a typo. What should faculty do? 

 

A. Not all faculty teach in the same number of hours. We are providing variation as some faculty teach 1hour courses, 2 hour courses, and so on. There is literally no way to account for all of the variation on a single form.

 

Q. The survey doesn't ask if the instructor wants or is available for Summer I or Summer II, just Summer in general.  Why?

 

A. Please add the term information to the comments.

 

Q. Can we request just one course five times, or do we have to put down five different courses? 

 

A. Put down your preference. If that is your choice to teach the same course 5 different times I think that is important context.

 

Q. We cannot select more than one course prefix for primary area of teaching. Why? Some people split their contract between two prefixes.  

 

A. You may select other and add all your courses manually.

 

Q. Are adjuncts going to be filling out this form as well? Did they receive the email? 

 

A. I have adjuncts emailing me questions. This form has gone out in email, Floyd’s update, and through marketing. Please feel free to forward.

 

Q. This question makes no sense at all: By the start of the following semesters will you have 0-5 years of experience teaching in higher education? Please select "Yes" if you will have in between 0 and 5 years of experience in higher education e.g., if you will have 5 years and 1 day please select "No.”

 

A. I just need to know if a faculty has had 5 years or less experience or if a faculty has more than 5 years’ experience.

 

Q. Are we scheduling under the assumption of face-to-face instruction for Fall 2021? 

 

A. Yes

 

Q. How does DC and ECHS fit into this or does it? 

 

A. It does not as it is a manual process with educational partnerships. If a faculty should choose a section, please add that in the comments.

 

Q. There are some faculty who will teach whatever, whenever, and wherever they are asked to do so.  They simply want to maximize their extra service potential.  How do they "say this"?  That is my question.  How do they communicate the idea that the most important issue to them is the maximum amount of extra service, not necessarily what, or where, or even when they teach? 

 

A. Please add this comment to the comment area. Its not about how the schedule team will read this, it is about how the faculty chair/dean will read it.

 

Q. Also can you help me understand why we are asking faculty for preferences for FA2021 this far out? 

 

A. We have a schedule published in April. We need teaching assignments to be made so that adoption can be appropriately assigned. Adoptions will occur in February, Follett will begin the work of validating ISBN/SKU and associating the materials with the appropriate course, and we need those materials to be associated with the courses before the schedule goes live in April.

 

Q. Could we use this time to help tighten the form even further and then send it out again in early spring?  

 

A. I cannot push out the date unless we are willing to sacrifice the timely association of learning materials. There is about a month worth of processing that needs to happen.

 

Q. It would be very helpful to have a live person to answer faculty questions as opposed to an FAQ page.  This would directly reduce the frustrations of the faculty.  Can you tell me who will use this information to plug faculty names into sections?  Will this be the Chairs or the Scheduling Team?  

 

A. Faculty Chairs/Dean will use this information.

 

Q. The form does not articulate what modality each semester is open to, for instance we (the faculty) do not know whether Summer & Fall are mandatory online or not. If we are moving back to the standard schedule then the form does not articulate whether faculty want to teach a class online, hybrid or face-to-face.

 

A. The decision on modality has not been made and continues to be very fluid. For now, we are moving forward with a typical semester. I believe leadership is aware of the ambiguity.

  

Q. The form presents itself as if all classes are face-to-face and does not ask about modality at all. If we are going back to face-to-face then class caps need to be changed to reflect the amount of computer seats in our labs.

 

A. Space management occurs at a different stage of planning.

  

Q. Also, the form does not ask about 1^st 8-week, 2^nd 8-week and/or 16-week classes and does not have an option to choose hybrid or blended classes. I’m not sure how equitable this form can be when it’s incomplete and does not reflect all the unique modalities of classes we teach. In addition, the form does not ask questions about stacked classes or continuing education sections.

 

A. We have not added this information at this time. I have asked and it was stated that we cannot move forward with adding it lest we ignore the more than 600 faculty who have completed the form. For now, I suggest adding flex term information in the comments section.