The Academic Space & Scheduling Office provides department chairs with schedule building materials and timetables. Department chairs submit their proposed schedules to the Academic Space & Scheduling Office for input and classroom assignment. Chairs may include room requests or may leave the room blank, providing details about room requirements as necessary, such as 'smart classroom on the first floor of Kinard.' If the Scheduling Office cannot fulfill these requests, the department chair will be notified and provided with alternate rooms and/or meeting times for consideration.
After the schedule building period is over and courses are viewable on Wingspan, departmental scheduling officers may change course capacities, instructor of record, and may create individually-directed courses (honors contract, independent study/research, masters' thesis, co-op, internship, etc.). The Academic Space and Scheduling Office should be contacted by the department chair or departmental scheduling officer to: add a new section of a class, cancel a class, assign or change registration controls, and change meeting times, days, or classrooms. The Academic Space & Scheduling Office ensures that courses are offered at standard times, in appropriate classrooms, for the required length of time, and that department schedules adhere to current and future scheduling guidelines.
In a self-service registration environment, course starting and ending dates greatly impact student deadlines regarding fee payment, refunds, add/drop, S/U, and withdrawals. Whenever possible, courses should meet within established sessions (full term, half term, or third term for fall and spring; A,B,C, or D session for summer), and course dates should not be changed once the schedule is submitted to the Academic Space and Scheduling Office. When department chairs receive schedule building materials (in November for the subsequent fall and in May for the subsequent spring), they will be provided with the established dates for full, half, and third term courses. If the need arises to schedule a course in a term other than those already established, approval to create a special part of term will be required from Academic Affairs before the course is scheduled.
The department chair e-mails course meeting information, including finalized term dates (which have been carefully reviewed for accuracy) and a justification to the dean. If the dean agrees there is a compelling reason that the course cannot be offered in an established part of term, s/he will approve and forward the request to the Academic Space & Scheduling Office and, for summer school classes, to the Summer Session Office Director. The Academic Space & Scheduling Coordinator will contact the Registrar to set up the special part of term and will add the course to Banner. The deans have agreed that, for summer school, they will try to minimize the number of special terms needed by grouping special courses together into the same nonstandard parts of term.
