Courses are scheduled by semester in two categories: (1) lecture-discussion courses meeting two or three times per week, and (2) seminars that meet once a week for an extended period. Recent experience has demonstrated that achieving greater distribution by time serves the academic process by reducing course time conflicts for students, curbing the number of courses that must be capped due to room size, and by facilitating a better match of room with the professor's instructional needs.

Scheduling Lecture-Discussion Courses:

Brown's course schedule offers 13 standard time periods for lecture-discussion courses. Seven meet three times per week for 50 minutes, and six meet twice a week for 80 minutes. Flexibility is introduced by not requiring departments to use all time slots. Departments with a preference for 80 minute classes meeting twice a week may have 60% or more of their courses in this pattern if they make use of the AB and L hours as well as H, I, J, and K. Departments preferring 50 minute classes may emphasize the MWF times. However, all departments are expected to make use of both types.

The overall goal is to have no more than 10% of all lecture-discussion courses meeting at any one time.

Chairs are asked to schedule lecture-discussion courses in multiples of 10. Within any set of 10 courses, no time period may be used more than once. Departments with 10 or fewer lecture-discussion courses in a semester may not use any time period more than once. A department with 15 lecture-discussion courses must use at least 10 different time periods and may schedule up to five time periods twice. A department with 23 lecture-discussion courses must use at least 10 different time periods and may use three time periods three times each. A department with 32 lecture discussion courses, must use at least 10 different time periods and may schedule a maximum of four courses at two time periods.

Lecture-Discussion Scheduling For Small Departments:

The principles outlined above are suitable in most cases, but they allow an inequitable advantage to units offering fewer than 10 lecture-discussion courses per semester. Hence, there are different provisions for small departments. To make scheduling easier, the principles applying to small units have been reduced to the following three points:

• No period may be used more than once per semester.

• At least one course per term must follow the MWF 50-minute pattern.

• At least one course in five must begin at 9 AM or before, or at 2 PM or later.

Scheduling Seminar Courses:

There are five time periods for seminars meeting once a week for 2 1/3 hours. The M, N, and O hours, meeting from 3-5:20 PM on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and the Q seminar time from 4-6:20 on Thursday, are available to all members of the teaching staff. The P seminar hour from 4-6:20 on Tuesday may be assigned to instructors who are not voting members of the faculty. Departments may also schedule seminars in the evenings after 6 PM if they can use space within the department for the course.

Seminars are scheduled in sets of 3. The popular times from 3-5:20 PM on Monday and Wednesday (M and N hours) may not be repeated unless the third course in each set of 3 is scheduled at one of the other time periods (O, P, or Q hours) or at an approved evening time in departmental space.

The goal in scheduling seminars is that no more than one third of all seminars should be assigned to any one time period

Using the Schedule Chart

The schedule chart is provided to aid chairs in developing a schedule that is consistent with the principles above. It does not need to be returned to the registrar's office. The registrar's office will compile a report based on your text and seek revisions to your schedule if it does not conform to these principles. In preparing your chart, please remember the following:

• Provide separate totals for lecture-discussion courses and seminar courses.

• Include 2000-level courses as well as courses numbered 1-1999.

• Include all University Courses taught by your faculty, including those listed only as UC courses and not crosslisted in your departmental listing.

• Include all sections and common meetings, but do not include labs or conferences.

• Due to the limited number of large classrooms, please take care to distribute courses with more than 80 students across different periods.

• A course utilizing all or part of two standard time periods (e.g., introductory language courses) should be entered and counted twice, once for each time period used.

• Exceptions must be approved by the registrar's office. Since first priority in room assignment is given to courses at standard times, non-standard times should be avoided.

Classroom Assignments and Changes:

First priority in classroom assignment is given to courses scheduled at standard times, therefore, non-standard times should be avoided. Classrooms are assigned on the basis of estimates of expected enrollment and on the seating arrangements and equipment needed for instruction. First day enrollment rarely exceeds the capacity of the assigned room, although the presence of "shoppers" may result in overcrowding. Assignments must be based on actual enrollment, and thus a larger room cannot be assigned on the basis of unenrolled visitors. If the presence of visitors results in overcrowding which could impair emergency egress, the instructor should take immediate corrective action consistent with principles established by the Provost and the Fire Marshall. (For example, shoppers may have to be asked to leave. If the instructor is willing, he or she may arrange to consult visitors outside of class about the possibility of entering the course.)

Shifts in enrollment after classes begin may necessitate some room changes, but every effort is made to keep these to a minimum. Whenever possible, room changes are avoided until enrollments stabilize after the second week of classes. However, changes on short notice may be necessary to accommodate mobility impaired students or instructors. It is essential that students and faculty with special needs maintain close communication with the registrar's office regarding course scheduling.

Faculty needing special instructional equipment must make a written request to the registrar's office by June 1 for fall semester courses and November 1 for spring semester courses.

University classrooms are available for course scheduling throughout the day and evening hours. Restricted classrooms, i.e., those to which a specific department has priority access, should be available for scheduling of courses at least 30 hours per week. Priority is given to the department as long as its assignments are submitted to the registrar's office before room scheduling begins (by July 1 for the fall semester and December 1 for spring), but remaining times are to be available to the registrar's office for use by other departments as needed. Projected enrollment for a course should be at least 75% of the room capacity. The specific pedagogical needs of a course, enrollment size demands, or the need to accommodate a mobility-impaired student or instructor may require that registrar's office override departmental scheduling of restricted classroom space.

Scheduling Principles Exceptions

The following alternative times may be readily approved:

Evening seminars starting at 6 pm or later may be scheduled if they can meet in departmental space.

T-Th 4-5:20 courses may be approved if the instructor is not a voting member of the faculty and the course does not require a seminar room set-up.

The AB hour (formally MW 8:30-9:50) can actually occur on any combination of MWF days.

A few of the following may be approved:

MW 3-4:20 courses in the mid-size range (50-100 students). The course must not be a small seminar-size class. The department should be warned that they may encounter conflicts on the part of students who want to take M or N hour seminars at the same time. If the course requires teaching assistants, they should consider that TAs may be taking seminars at those times.

Departments with classrooms for which they have scheduling priority (restricted rooms) may schedule odd hours for limited-enrollment courses using those rooms if they efficiently use the left-over times. For example, if a department has a seminar room, they could schedule seminars in the room on M and W from 9:30-noon and conferences for a larger course at 9:00, 10:00, and 11:00 on Friday. However, we would not approve a single seminar on Wednesday from 9:30 to noon if it meant that there was no use for the room for the six hours from 9-12 on Monday and Friday. A department wanting to use a restricted room in this way should submit a schedule for the room showing that the time is being used efficiently. Remember that restricted rooms should be available for scheduling of courses a minimum of 30 hours per week. Priority is given to the department as long as its assignments are submitted to the registrar's office before room scheduling begins (by July 1 for the fall semester and December 1 for spring), but remaining times are to be available to the registrar's office for use by other departments as needed.