Curriculum Rescheduling

Owen Byer, math professor, introduced a proposal to change the typical credit hours of the courses at EMU to four and two hours from three and one hours on Wednesday night in Common Grounds. The presentation drew a crowd of about 25 people, mostly students.

The proposal, which has been in the works for the last five years, would require the faculty to reevaluate the three credit hour courses that currently exist, adding or removing material to fit the new number of courses. Four-hour courses would run the entire semester, while two-hour courses would have the same amount of class time, but for only half a semester. The typical envisioned course load would be four classes, or 16 credit hours. Proposed class times would be longer: 65 minutes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and 100 minutes on Tuesday and Thursday with a five minute break in the middle. Class sizes would remain constant, as would hour requirements for majors and graduation.

The benefits of the proposal are primarily built around the opportunity for all involved to focus on the classes being taught. Not only would students only have four, or at most five classes, but teachers would teach three classes a semester. This would allow for more in-depth preparation, as well as help in recruiting, as most colleges already have teachers on a three-course workload.

The proposal would also allow flexibility within a semester. Students involved in theater productions or athletics could take a two-hour course during one half of a semester and scale back during the other. Also, a student that dropped a four-hour course would be able to add a two-hour one halfway through the semester.

At the moment, individual departments are discussing the idea, with a final decision on its implementation being made by the spring. Should it be accepted, the earliest possible date for the change to be made is spring of 2008.

According to Byer and Steve Johnson, professor of Visual and Communication Arts, the reexamination of the curriculums in their respective departments necessary for the change should be done anyways. Several students joined them in their concerns over redundancy in courses within their majors.

The idea has been tossed around within a committee composed of Byer, Johnson, Nancy Heisey, professor of bible and religion, Sandy Brownscombe of the education and physical education departments, as well as Terry Jantzi, professor of sociology. Though sidelined for years by the restructuring of the general education courses and prioritization, in a poll taken last year, two-thirds of faculty said that they were interested or very interested in the possibility.

At the moment, the project is very much in its formative stages. The departments will soon be debating the issue, and the professors involved are very interested in student feedback.