Next fall, some students will be crashing classes at 7 a.m. Kathleen Agostini, the university scheduling lead, said it’s not the university scheduling office’s fault.
“In this office, we are essentially resource managers. We try to work with the needs of teachers and students to serve everyone as best we can,” Agostini said.
The University Scheduling Office is responsible for arranging the yearly schedules that include every class and every section offered by the school. But its responsibilities are primarily behind-the-scenes. Susan Olivas, the interim associate registrar of curriculum and scheduling and the scheduling office supervisor, said her office is student-oriented.
“Our job really is to plan each quarter to give students as many class options as possible while dealing with instructors’ needs,” Olivas said.
The scheduling office has no initial influence over the classes offered every quarter — its work depends on the requests of about 56 departments across campus.
“In February, the academic department schedulers are finishing their schedules for next fall based on their budgets and present and projected enrollment,” Agostini said.
The staff works about a year ahead with the departments to plan the upcoming quarters. After each department submits the classes they want to offer, based on their needs and budgets, the scheduling office then allocates classrooms and time slots.
Students often rush to blame the office for huge class sections that can affect how they are taught material, but the reality is that every quarter, there are roughly 110 available classrooms on campus and about 4,100 class sections that need a space to be held.
When there is a high demand for a certain class, the sections will usually be larger. Also, when there are not enough resources for every section, the scheduling office will combine class sections to accommodate more students. Large classes are harder to find a room for, since there are only a few rooms with a capacity over 100 on campus.
“It’s not the perfect scenario for anyone, but it’s what has to be done. I think it must be hardest on the teachers,” Jill St. John, the events scheduler, said.
Agostini said she believes the scheduling office is also held responsible for classes scheduled at inconvenient times like 7 a.m. or 8 p.m. However, the intention of the scheduling office is to accommodate students and avoid canceling classes unless it is absolutely necessary, and this often entails scheduling classes at all the possible time slots.
“Sometimes students are on a specific course to graduate, and if they need a certain class and the only available slot is at 7 a.m., it’s probably a necessary choice,” Agostini said.
The scheduling office also tries to schedule classes at times that accommodate the special requests of teachers and give them time to prepare.
“The most difficult part of scheduling classes is when teachers request class times that deviate from the standard time pattern. However, if they really need a special time, we try our best to work it out,” Agostini said. “Sometimes we also get last-minute requests from teachers to change rooms, which are harder to work with.”
Some professors feel frustrated about the class options they have to take, but they seem to understand the difficulty of the scheduling office’s job. Brian Kennelly, who teaches French and used to be the modern languages and literatures department head, has been directly involved in the process between departments and the scheduling office.
“The department head takes teacher requests and arranges the ‘ideal’ schedule to send to scheduling. Sometimes the office sends our requests back saying they couldn’t be accommodated, but they give us other options,” Kennelly said. “I think it’s better not to protest what scheduling gives us. It’s a tricky process for them, I don’t know how they do it all.”
The scheduling office is not involved at all with decisions about furlough days, Agostini said. The office staff is informed of the state requirements only two months before the school year begins. Furlough days are required in the scheduling office as well, and the office staff has become used to having to rearrange how to get their work done.
“We don’t hear about any furlough days until July, and it’s something that can’t really be negotiated,” Agostini said.
Working a year in advance leaves time for the scheduling office to troubleshoot class issues. The staff is prepared to deal with sudden conflicts with the departments and phone calls from students and teachers during the busiest times of the year. However, the staff said specific scheduling questions are better addressed to the department schedulers.
“The first two weeks, the weeks during registration and the week before finals tend to be the times we receive the most phone calls about schedules,” Agostini said. “Most calls from students are complaints about needing bigger classrooms and teachers tend to complain about class times.”
When the staff thinks about how funding for the school may affect scheduling in the future they are just as anxious as students, Agostini said.
“We will hear about next year’s budget in May, but even then, nothing is final. We can hope and begin to plan for the best, but the truth is we really are at the mercy of the budget,” St. John said.
While most of their responsibilities depend on decisions made in other areas of the school, work in the university class scheduling office is never done. However, the staff has long since found a structure to handling all the details.
“We all really work well together and have each other’s backs if someone needs help,” St. John said. “Only time will tell what will happen with scheduling in the future, but we’re willing to work with whatever happens.”