Photo credit: Kimberly Smith
Kimberly Smith Graphic
One Stop and the Office of the Provost collaborated to fix ongoing scheduling conflicts between undergraduate and graduate final exam schedules.
In a university-wide email from Dr. Vicky Bowden, vice provost, the new format aims to publish final exams earlier in the semester, reduce the number of tests on Fridays, and minimize double-booking of finals.
Although this final exam schedule is coming out later in the semester than it has in previous years, Bowden explained that the changes will ensure that the schedules in the future will be released sooner.
In addition to the finals slate, the class schedule was also changed.
“The start and stop times of all classes have changed and now there’s 15 minutes between every undergraduate class, and of course, we moved chapel from a 9:30 to a 10:30 start time,” Bowden said.
The overall process of changing the class schedule was due in part to the lack of space for classes and conflicts between undergraduate and graduate schedules. Problems came because the two schedules were kept separate, and this made it difficult to create finals times that didn’t overlap.
With a delay in resolution of difficulties between the two schedules, final exam times were often published at the last minute.
“Because the final schedule is different from the usual class schedule. It meant that there [are] conflicts. We would schedule a final, and lo and behold, we’d schedule it in the middle of when a graduate class was happening,” Bowden said.
The process of reformatting the schedule that ensued was highly detail-oriented. As a solution, One Stop and the Office of the Provost created a system for finals with seven time slots. This means that there are now seven times during the day when students are scheduled to take finals.
One of the main goals of this project was to give faculty and students earlier access to the final exam schedule so that they knew it at the beginning of the semester instead of five to six weeks later. Both offices are working to have these early final schedules available by the spring 2015 semester.
Both faculty and students are dependent upon the final exam schedule. Students often need to make travel arrangements for the holidays and professors use the finals schedule to plan and format their exams.
Dr. Brooke Van Dam, who is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies, gives out more final projects than sit-down exams. Van Dam explained that knowing about exams in advance allows students to know how much time they have to turn in their projects.
Van Dam also noted that knowing about the final exam schedule later in the semester was difficult, especially if she was given a late exam time at the end of the week.
Cassandra Webber, a transfer student and communication studies major, is not used to finding out about exams late in the semester. At her previous college, the schedules were available at the beginning of the semester.
The original problem with the final exam schedule occurred because of the influx of graduate and undergraduate students and the addition of new classes. The problem with final exam scheduling began as a result of the rise in new students.
Almost two years after the issue began, the solution has been found. Now that the undergraduate and graduate schedules match, students and faculty can prepare for exams sooner rather than later.