The St. Thomas University senate voted to postpone discussion on reducing 50-minute time slots from four to two and adding two 90-minute time slots on Monday and Wednesday until next fall.
Even though a motion wasn’t made by senate, students reacted quickly to the possibility of this change and a petition was drafted asking to postpone the vote and allow for more student input. The petition received 118 signatures in two days.
Second-year student Chloe Saulnier sat in James Dunn Hall with the petition. She said some students were under the false impression that 50-minute classes were being abolished completely. She said when she cleared that misconception some students were still worried about the reduction in the number of these time slots because of accessibility and extra-curricular activities such as sports.
“I had some concerns for people who have ADHD, for example, and what happens with them if they have to take longer classes and the fact that it limits the flexibility of schedules for some students too,” she said.
Saulnier said she attended a town hall organized by residence presidents to discuss what students can do, which resulted in the petition being drafted.
“A lot of people were confused,” she said. “What we wanted was just more information and for the student voices to be heard by members of senate before they made a decision.”
Kim Fenwick, vice-president academic and research at St. Thomas, said an ad-hoc committee was struck back in March 2016 to discuss this issue because of faculty and timetable concerns. Megan Thomson, ex-president of the St. Thomas University Students’ Union was the student representative on that committee.
“The main issue that lead to a discussion about the time change in the first place was the fact that more professors teach classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays than Monday and Wednesday. So students were having trouble getting their courses because they were loading up on Tuesday and Thursday classes,” Fenwick said.
Registrar Karen Preston is the head of this committee. She said they mainly looked at numbers.
“It was very clear that the Monday, Wednesday and Friday time slots were underutilized compared to the Tuesday-Thursday.”
On Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 1:30 there are only 11 classes going on compared to Tuesday and Thursday at 1:30 where there are around 25 classes.
“When we have 30 courses going on at the same time, student selection would be minimal … The biggest consideration was for the students.”
Preston said she also consulted with academic advisors and their input was similar: Too many classes on Tuesday and Thursday.
Fenwick said the motion was a long way from being made and changes wouldn’t have occurred this school year or next anyway.
“There’s no clear consensus among professors, some professors prefer the 50-minute, some the 90-minute. But more courses are taught in the 90-minute slot because some professors feel like that is conducive to the style of teaching that they use in their classes,” she said.
“Nothing was set in stone, [the committee only produced] a discussion document which is why we didn’t expect the reaction that we got.”
Approximately six students attended the senate meeting Thursday.
“It was clear that students are very concerned,” Fenwick said.
Preston said she will send an email to the general student population around April to ask for their input.
“They can send their input to me as chair and I will bring it back to the committee,” Preston said. “We will start with that.”
“Professors want to hear what students think obviously, we’re all here to try and create a timetable that works for everybody … We want to facilitate students’ education,” Fenwick said.
Saulnier said before accepting any signatures she made sure to inform the students about what they were signing and give them the facts.
“We made sure we explained the senate’s reasons behind it … To make sure we’re going about it the right way … I think the fact that we got 118 signatures really showed the senate how much students care about this issue,” Saulnier said.
Changes may be seen in 2018-19 at the earliest.
