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 1st 8-week, 2nd 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.
