TO: Classrooms Committee

FROM: Rosalie F. Maddocks

DATE: January 8, 1999

These are the 22 largest general-purpose classrooms, seating 100 students or more. The Fall 1998 scheduling for these rooms by timebands is summarized in an accompanying table.

The data for this analysis were taken from Registration and Academic Records RARCAS screens on December 11, 1998. The enrollments are as of the end of the semester, after the Last Day to Drop. Twelfth Class Day enrollments would be 5% to 30% higher, and Spring Semester enrollments might be about 5% lower. The assignments of these rooms to colleges are taken from the list published in the RAR Summer and Fall 1998 Class Schedule Development Information Packet.

1. Between 7 AM and 10 PM weekdays (the hours for which space utilization is reported to the Coordinating Board) there are 12 MWF+MW timebands and 10 TTH timebands for a total of 22 timebands. In 22 rooms through 22 timebands, as many as 484 sections could be scheduled. In actual usage, 266 sections are scheduled. These rooms are utilized for 55% of the scheduling week.

2. Eight of the 22 timebands are defined as prime: 9-10 AM, 10-11 AM, and 11-12 AM MWF; 5:30-7 PM MW; 8:30-10 AM, 10-11:30 AM, 11:30 AM-1 PM and 5:30-7 PM TTH. Departments are required "to schedule outside the prime times AT LEAST 1/3 of organized classes and 1/3 of the class sections with quotas of 100 or more." This allows up to 67% of sections to be scheduled into 36% of timebands (prime time). In this pool of 266 sections, 116 (44%) are scheduled outside of prime time.

3. Occupancy is highest in the 10-11:30 TTH timeband (no vacant classroom) and the 10-11 MWF timeband (one vacant classroom). In all other timebands there are two or more unused classrooms.

4. Occupancy is highest during prime timebands, with 76 of 142 MWF+MW sections and 74 of 124 TTH sections scheduled in prime timebands (total 150 of 266 sections, or 56%).

5. Occupancy is lowest in the early morning, late afternoon, and late evening. No classes are scheduled for these rooms in the 7-8 AM MWF, 8:30-10 PM MW, and 8:30-10 PM TTH timebands. In the 8-9 AM MWF, 4-5:30 PM MW, 7-8:30 MW, 4-5:30 PM TTH, and 7-8:30 TTH timebands, only 6 or 7 or 8 sections are scheduled.

6. 142 sections are scheduled in the 12 MWF and MW timebands, for an average of 11.9 sections per timeband. 124 sections are scheduled in the 10 TTH timebands, for an average of 12.4 sections per timeband. For comparable courses at comparable times, enrollments are higher in the TTH sections than in the MWF sections. These two factors combine to produce significantly higher room utilization (as measured by headcount and SCH) for the TTH timebands than for MWF timebands.

7. Auditorium 1 AH and room 160 F are the two most heavily scheduled rooms, each being occupied for 16 of 22 timebands. The least heavily scheduled is room 104 C, occupied for 7 timebands. The average room in this pool is scheduled for 12.1 timebands.

8. A traditional noon lunch hour is visible MWF, though not TTH. At 12 MWF only 15 sections are scheduled, compared with 19 sections at 11 AM MWF and 20 sections at 1 PM MW.

9. Freshman- and sophomore-level "monster Core" courses in the Undergraduate Core Curriculum account for the greatest use of these rooms, especially during prime times. Those courses are identified by designator and number on the table. They include multiple sections of required and elective Core courses, such as American History, American Government, Western Civilization, College Algebra, Finite Math, Calculus and the introductory Social Sciences and Natural Sciences courses.

10. Courses that are required for majors in one or more programs also use these rooms, as well as some popular 3000-level elective and Core courses. On the table these courses are identified by designator plus UND. Examples include Organic Chemistry, Accounting, Business, Engineering, Pharmacy, and Human Sex, Marriage and Family. Enrollments are generally smaller than for the "monster" category.

11. Only a couple true graduate courses are scheduled in these rooms, mostly in the evening. However, some units schedule an afternoon graduate class (seminar or special problems) with 000 enrollment (probably to reserve the room for a weekly speaker series).

12. Geographically, eight of these rooms are located on the north and east sides of the campus (Architecture, Melcher, Communication, Engineering), and fourteen are clustered near the west side of campus (Agnes Arnold, Social Work, Science and Research, Fleming, Roy Cullen). In general, the eastern rooms serve courses required for the disciplines housed in those buildings, whereas most lower-division Core courses are scheduled into rooms of the western group. This geographic clustering of Core courses is appropriate, because students have only 10 minutes to get from one class to another.

13. It is likely that the eastern and western groups of rooms have different needs with respect to cleaning, maintenance and teaching media, as a result of the disparate student populations and user disciplines.

14. Each room is assigned to a particular college, but another college may use it if the college with priority does not. The description in the RAR Schedule Packet of the protocol and timing for negotiating use of a non-owned room is unclear and probably not quite accurate. I have not been able to obtain a description of the actual procedure, which may consist simply of telephone calls. The RARCAS screens for these rooms show only a couple conflicts -- two sections scheduled in the same room at the same time. In each case, one section has an enrollment of 000 and presumably was canceled. Thus, the existing procedure is effectively preventing room conflicts. (Some units intentionally schedule two sections together and teach them concurrently, but that is a different matter.)

15. For the most part, the prime timebands in a particular room are occupied by the college that owns that room. Courses of other colleges tend to be relegated to less desirable times.

16. The scheduling patterns and hearsay suggest that these room assignments may take priority over need (however that might be defined), and that sharing is voluntary rather than enforced. If college B wishes to use a room owned by college A in a particular timeband, it may request permission, but if college A wants to use that timeband and denies permission, college B has no recourse. There does not appear to be a mechanism for weighing relative needs or for arbitration. To the extent that associate deans cooperate cheerfully and students are served effectively, this absence of a central bureaucracy is a good thing. To the extent that the current practice might encourage negative behaviors (hoarding, complaining) or might not serve students optimally, this would not be such a good thing.

17. These 22 large rooms are allocated to colleges as follows: ARCH (1 room), BUS (4), ENGR (1.59), HFAC (3.73), NSM (6), PHAR (0.68), SS (5). (Decimals represent proportional ownership by time bands for shared rooms.)

18. By total seating capacity, the allocations are as follows: ARCH (226), BUS (1121), ENGR (257), HFAC (932 seats), NSM (1421), PHAR (144), SS (1149) (weighted for the shared rooms).

19. Two rooms (Lect 2 D2, 104C) are assigned jointly to two colleges (Pharmacy and Engineering, Pharmacy and HFAC), with ownership partioned by timebands. Pharmacy has morning ownership of Lect 2 D2 and afternoon ownership of 104 C. No classroom is assigned solely to Pharmacy.

20. This assignment protocol allows colleges to schedule "underfit" courses (sections with enrollments well below room capacity) into owned rooms in prime time. For example, HIST 2343 (enrollment 187) occupies Aud1 AH (capacity 592) at 10 MWF. GEOL 1376 (enrollment 42) occupies 116 SR1 at 11 MWF. In the afternoon, room 150 ARCH (capacity 226) is occupied by sections of Architecture Design Studio (enrollment 15). No doubt many worthy purposes are served and there may be excellent reasons for these cases, but in campus-wide perspective this use pattern does not maximize room utilization as measured by headcount and SCH. During the timebands for which these rooms are in use, actual utilization is well below room capacity for many of them.

21. Certain programs are able to concentrate most of their large classes into one room. For example, Architecture is taught in 150 ARC, History in Aud1 AH, Chemistry in 160 F, Business in the Melcher Hall lecture rooms, ENGR in W122D3. This consistency has many advantages for instructors, students and departments, such as accumulation of in-room teaching materials and ease of schedule-building. However, certain other programs teach their large sections all over campus, notably Pharmacy, Biology and Art History. Attention should be given to difficulties caused by these inconsistencies.

22. There is no shortage of large classrooms! Contrary to universal belief, like so many things that "everybody knows," the data do not support this generalization.

23. The perceived (but illusory) shortage of large classrooms arises from five sources:

24. The concentration of course offerings into a few prime timebands, though convenient for many students, increases the likelihood of course conflicts for full-time and residential students who would like to take 16-18 hours. The attendant congestion impacts students' access to the Library, computer clusters, office hours of instructors and advisors, parking, and other activities and services. Strategies (acting on both supply and demand) that encourage dispersion across timebands should be sought.

25. Ownership of rooms is a good thing, to the extent that it encourages pride in and responsibility for maintenance of the learning environment. Colleges (and departments, where appropriate) that own rooms are more likely to keep them clean and in good repair, to supervise their uses, to invest in teaching media, and to install appropriate teaching resources (such as maps and decorative items). Just as home ownership means that the taxes and mortgage must be paid and the lawn must be mowed, so classroom ownership should bring responsibilities as well as privileges.

26. Optimal utilization of the seating capacity of each room would relieve many of the existing stresses. A second criterion for scheduling a course into a particular room, besides ownership, should be the likelihood of utilizing full seating capacity. For most courses using large classrooms, there are good historical data from which first-day, twelfth-day and last-day enrollments, attendance rates and drop rates may be predicted.

27. As high-tech teaching media and other fixed resources are installed in certain classrooms, the need for using those resources should be a third criterion.

28. The recommendations of the Undergraduate Council Report on "Teaching Space, Enrollment Demand and University Time Bands Policy" (April 1997) should be implemented.

29. Priority for purposes of scheduling a particular course into a particular room at a particular time should be determined by weighing three criteria simultaneously: ownership of the room, likelihood of utilizing full room capacity, and need for installed resources. Sections that could demonstrate strong "need" according to the second and third criteria would be able to displace less "needy" sections, regardless of ownership. One effect would be to allow a greater variety of disciplines to offer prime-time monster sections than is the case at present. Another effect would be to establish a hierarchy of classrooms by size, such that a course expecting to enroll 200 students would have priority for classrooms seating 200, though it might not prevail in competition for Aud 1 AH.

30. The mechanism for carrying out this policy should be amicable agreement of the associate deans of the colleges concerned during each scheduling cycle, with appeal to the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs if necessary. More centralized, bureaucratic options, such as a central room-assignment office, are likely to be more expensive to administer and more detached from the academic considerations that should ultimately guide these decisions.

31. Classroom assignments should be re-examined regularly, to be sure they remain congruent with discipline and campus needs and to distribute the benefits and responsibilities of room ownership to the appropriate colleges and departments. It is suggested that these assignments be reviewed every three years by the Associate Deans of those colleges that use general-purpose classrooms, with appeal to the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs if necessary.

32. This report examines only the 22 largest classrooms, though it is likely that similar trends prevail for the smaller rooms. None of the statistics presented measure effectiveness of scheduling for academic purposes and student needs. For example, this report does not consider whether more or fewer large sections should be offered, nor does it examine timebands scheduling except as it affects classroom utilization. Some of these questions were addressed by the Undergraduate Council report. Others are best determined by the units that deliver these courses.

33. Utilization of classrooms must be considered in context of changing academic and demographic influences. Effective Fall 1999, a new Undergraduate Core Curriculum will be in place, and although most Core courses that are taught in large sections at present will continue to be part of the new Core, there may be subtle shifts in enrollments. Any Admissions changes that affect the mix of FTIC freshmen to transfer students, the preparation of entering students, the financial aid and academic support services offered to students, and the geographic catchment area will have ripple effects on classroom utilization. As students commute for longer distances through worsening traffic, the remote campuses and Distance Education will become more attractive alternatives. It is likely that by 2010 Television and OnLine courses will be serving a substantial proportion of the part-time population that formerly supported night programs on the Main Campus. Many of these factors have been and will be the subject of recommendations from the Undergraduate Council and are outside the scope and charge of the Classrooms Committee. The point is that classroom management must be adjusted continuously in light of these academic considerations.