Student Senate votes to change future class times

After much debate, Student Senate backed the decision made by the Calendar Committee to reduce class sessions on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays by five minutes. Tuesday and Thursday classes will also be adjusted to 75 minute class periods.

Karl Peterson, chemistry professor and chair of the Calendar Committee, addressed questions from senators as they discussed the positives and negatives of the change.

These changes allow each class to start on the hour or on the half hour, Peterson said.

There are no dates set for when the new class times will occur. When Faculty Senate votes on the proposal Dec. 20, the Registrar’s office will decide when class changes should be implemented.

If Faculty Senate approves the change, Registrar Dan Vande Yacht said staff will have the new class schedules available for the 2007-08 academic year.

“If it gets approved, we will be ready to go in the fall,” he said. “It’s not set in stone, but it is what we’re aiming for.”

Senator Ashley Olson, Diversity Issues Committee director, said the most important aspect of the change must be an assessment of any effects it has on students, faculty and staff after it is implemented.

“The Calendar Committee is very open to suggestions,” Peterson said. “We don’t want to look back at this four or five years down the road and say, ‘What should we have been looking at?’”

With retention rates on the forefront, Peterson said the committee will look at any changes in the percentage of students leaving after their first or second year at UW-River Falls to see if any correlations can be made with the change in class time.

In a close 10-9 vote, senators made distinct points about how the campus will benefit from the decreased time of class sessions.

With less time in classes, faculty have the opportunity to schedule convenient office hours for students to utilize, said Natalie Hagberg, Leadership Development and Programming Board chair.

“This can encourage students to utilize the office hours designed for them by professors,” she said. “It gives them a one-on-one setting.”

Olson said the new time for classes will cause professors to assess their teaching style, making sure students are getting the most important information for the course.

“There’s something to be said about getting the quality within the time we have,” she said. “It also takes an initiative to work outside of a class.”

Students who already struggle with the amount of time given for their courses warranted concern for Senator Jim Vierling, who pointed out a negative aspect the change may have on students’ ability to learn in the shorter time period.

“For a struggling student, that five minutes can be a huge amount of time that could have been spent talking to the professor,” he said. “Imagine how valuable that time is to them.”

Vierling also said the five minutes, to him, is a big change.

“Classes don’t get easier as they get higher up [in course number],” he said. “We also need to consider the tougher classes — the material is different and harder.”

The five-minute decrease will also eliminate 3.8 classes per semester, Peterson said.

“If you think about that, for a Monday, Wednesday and Friday class, it is a week of classes a student will be losing,” he said.

For Senator Jason Schultz, the number of classes deducted in a semester was a huge difference that could reflect on an incoming student as they start their education at UWRF.
“3.8 is a lot of days,” he said. “As an incoming student, this can make it a little harder for them.”

Schultz said he has become accustomed to the way the classes are scheduled now because he has been a student here for four years.

“It’s been this way for the four years I’ve been here,” Schultz said. “I guess I might be against it because it is a change.”

A time to change

The idea to decrease Monday, Wednesday and Friday class periods by five minutes was an easy one to make, but executing it took time and much deliberation from the campus community.

At the beginning of the semester, Peterson began discussing the concept with Provost Charlie Hurt and Chancellor Don Betz.

Listening sessions were also held Dec. 7 and 8 for faculty, staff and students to learn and debate the change, as well as fill out an exit survey to express their opinions.

Peterson presented positive and negative aspects of the subject.

Only one major weakness was addressed — the amount of in-class instructional time for faculty and students will decrease.

“We don’t have less to teach,” said Dave Trechter, chair of agricultural economics. “We actually have more.”

Yet the idea of having shorter class times should not affect the commitment of students, Peterson said.

“Students should be looking at the educational experience, not the face time,” he said.

Less work conducted in class means more work required by students outside of classes, Peterson said about losing the five minutes.

Student Senate Parliamentarian and Ethics Chair Jenifer Biss spoke up to say she is opposed to the change.

“If it did change, someone needs to look if there is a loss of education,” she said.

Yet studies have found that the amount of time a student spends with a professor in class does not increase or decrease the outcome of their learning, Peterson said.

“I certainly value my time with students,” he said. “I have to believe my contact with students is valuable. Most students are willing to succeed with contact with me, and most can without contact.”

Student Dan Scott said he understands the Calendar Committee’s emphasis on academics, but students are not going to see the decrease of five minutes as the same.

“They are going to look at the convenience over the academics,” said Scott, the Student Senate student affairs and academic services director. “For those paying for it, it is not justifiable.”

Positive aspects the Calendar Committee mentioned when examining the change were: increased use of technology, such as Desire 2 Learn and the electronic library reserve, and implementation of more alternative academic strategies — like field experience — into classroom requirements.

“With all the money being spent on technologies, what a better time than with a possible change to start using what is offered to faculty,” Peterson said. “But, unfortunately, there is a general resistance to want to change.”

If the change is finalized, administration, faculty, staff and students would have more convenience in scheduling meetings and classes, Peterson said.

“Classes later in the day are less appealing to students because of how late it becomes by the time there are done,” he said. “The new 2 p.m. class looks much more attractive; it is freeing up more time.”

Terry Ferriss, chair of plant and earth science, said she is very much in favor of the change because students learn the most within the first 20 minutes of a class and in the Monday, Wednesday and Friday sessions versus those on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

“Quantity doesn’t equal quality,” she said.

She also said she believes scheduling would be more convenient.

“The world works on the hour,” Ferriss said. “We can’t expect the world to change to us.”

When scheduling her own meetings, Ferriss said she finds it very difficult to make time when classes end at random points in the hour.

“It’s the off-campus people who normally request the meetings,” she said.

About two years ago, UWRF had 50-minute class times, but changed to 55 minutes when the Calendar Committee changed the entire calendar for both the fall and spring semesters, Peterson said. It was to balance the calendar as evenly as possible because a state statute requires all classes to begin after Sept. 1.

Ferriss said since the change, she has noticed an increase in faculty stress, burning out and complaints of being tired from the longer hours.

Most faculty members begin their days at UWRF well before 7 a.m., she said, forcing many to leave around 6 p.m. because the last class session ends at 5:35 p.m.

“This stretches the day out for faculty, especially the younger faculty, who have families and commute,” Ferriss said.

This also means most student organizations can’t start until after 5:45 p.m.

“Students aren’t out early enough to get decent hours in at their jobs,” she said. “Then they still need time to do homework, extending their day even further.”

But Peterson said the time a student has outside the classroom should be devoted for studying, not necessarily working, and the change to 50-minute classes would help that.

“This gives them more educational work and more time for studying in the time you are losing,” he said. “Students need to make up for the time they are missing.”