University of Delaware Provost Tom Apple has proposed having classes on Saturday reports The Review. Provost Apple cited low attendance to Friday classes as one of the reasons for the potential move to Saturday classes.
“Fridays are disappearing from the academic calendar,” Apple said at the meeting. By meeting twice a week, more pressure would be placed upon the student to attend both classes, he said.
Deputy Provost Havidán Rodríguez said the Faculty Senate is discussing the proposed change with the deans of all seven colleges and will continue discussing the issue at its next meeting on Oct. 5.
“We are now initiating preliminary conversations regarding class schedules and the effective utilization of our classrooms,” Rodríguez said. “More importantly, we are focusing on new and innovative strategies to continue to increase and promote academic rigor and excellence in all the work that we do.”
He said spreading out the schedule would also alleviate over-crowding of classes during peak times of the day.
The utilization rate of classroom space ranges from about 93 to 100 percent, between 9:30 am and 4:00 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, he said. On Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays, the utilization rate is around 90 percent from about 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. With that, the classroom utilization rates earlier in the mornings and during late afternoons are considerably lower.
While the UD Alumni Relations Blog has never, ever been guilty of missing an early morning Friday class, we understand how one could accidentally oversleep after a long Thursday night session at Kate’s the Deer Park the Stone Balloon the Morris Library. Perhaps Saturday classes are the way to go – no classes on Friday and Saturday before 10 would lower the classroom utilization rate and would lower the ‘I was up too late studying to go to class’ rate.
Stay tuned for the report from the October 5 meeting. The UD Alumni Relations Blog predicts a trial of Saturday classes for a handful of courses this spring semester.
Provost proposes Saturday classes [udreview.com]
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