麻豆传媒社区入口

• March 6, 2017

麻豆传媒社区入口 faculty transitioning from quarters to semesters will likely see an impact to their workload come fall 2018, when the process is complete. But the Semester Conversion Office is determined to help mitigate any challenges the change might cause. 

Mike Hedrick, director of semester conversion, said that a typical teaching load for CSUEB faculty on the quarter system is three, four-unit classes for a total of nine courses (36 quarter units) in an academic year. After the change to semesters, a typical full-time faculty teaching load could be four, three-unit classes per semester, for a total of eight courses (24 semester units).

“Each faculty member could end up teaching more courses, subjects and students per term – four courses per semester versus three courses per quarter,” Hedrick said. “So even though the number of units taught per year is equivalent, from the faculty point of view the instructional work will include more classes per term and thus a higher workload.”

However, he added that a universitywide workload task force, composed of representatives from the faculty and administration and chaired by Dr. Linda Ivey of the history department, is currently working on scenarios for a reduced faculty workload under semesters that would be beneficial to both students and faculty.

Hedrick and others hope the benefits of a semester schedule — more time to cover teaching material and work on projects, for example — will help better engage students. 

“Even though it’s about the same number of classroom hours, you’re stretching it over 15 weeks instead of 10 … so from a pedagogical perspective, semesters are sometimes considered superior to quarters,” he said.

Some departments have chosen to change three-unit classes to four units starting in 2018 so professors will be able to carry the same number of classes but meet the new unit requirements.

And it’s also still unclear how the inclusion of a university hour will impact course scheduling. The U-hour as it’s commonly called, was approved for fall 2018 earlier this year and is period of time during the day on Tuesdays and Thursdays when lecture classes are not scheduled to allow time for various to take place on campus.

“Right now, the bulk of our classes are offered Monday through Thursday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., but with the addition of a university hour … that might look more like five days a week for more hours a day, depending on when faculty can teach and classrooms will be available,” Hedrick said.