We must align offerings and instructional FTE with WOU’s enrollments.  To that end, this approach is an effort to facilitate changes that have resulted from efficiencies and Article 15 work, and to proactively coordinate curriculum, scheduling and allocation of instructional FTE across programs, divisions and colleges.  Scheduling in 2021-22 emphasizes student-centered curriculum, accessible courses, efficient delivery, sustainable section sizes and flexibility to deal with the unanticipated.

Courses that satisfy requirements in the General Education program are assigned via “General Education” contact hours.  Courses that are not in the General Education program are included in the allocation of “Program” contact hours.  A few programs offer service courses primarily for other majors.  Those have been accounted for in “other service” (for lower division courses) and in program contact hours for upper division credits.

There are two reasons why we are focused especially on scheduling for undergraduate programs.  First, undergraduate programs comprise 85-90% of WOU’s instruction.  And second, university-level programs like General Education and Honors create curricular complexities and interdependencies that we need to more proactively manage and coordinate.  Scheduling for graduate programs is also expected to align with resources allocated, and program coordinators should work with their deans to understand the guidelines.

By the end of May, we will have most of the information regarding how much NTT FTE will be needed to support our academic programs.  We will have a good sense of Honors, FYS and Salem teaching assignments by February; when we have this information, we will allocate NTT FTE to programs for that instructional service.  We will know Faculty Development and Technology Enhanced teaching releases in May.  Dean and Provost releases will be allocated throughout the year, as will FMLA and extra section assignments.  As has always been the case, as releases are identified and assigned programs will make staffing adjustments.

General Education courses are accounted for in the General Education assignment, even if those courses are required in your program.  Program courses are non-Gen Ed courses that support your program.

In the past couple of years, the General Education program has done a fantastic job of getting the new Gen Ed up and running, including developing and staffing numerous First-Year Seminars.  With the exception of First-Year Seminars and First-Year Writing, however, we did not proactively manage the number of sections of General Education courses to ensure that neither too many nor too few were offered.  In large part, this was because we did not have information to guide such decisions.  

We now have information on patterns of enrollments in General Education courses, and can use that information to (1) estimate how many sections of courses we need in the different Gen Ed areas and (2) allocate those sections across programs based on past contributions and university need. For WOU to be sustainable, our General Education courses need to enroll more students, on average.  To that end, we have set an overall target of 25 students per General Education course, understanding that areas of Gen Ed and some courses will be smaller while others will be larger.  We have also considered declining enrollments among undergraduate students in determining the number of sections to be offered.

In 2022-23, we anticipate scheduling about XX General Education courses, which is fewer than were scheduled in 2021-22.  In part this is a reflection of declining enrollments and in part a reflection of the increased proportion of transfer students (who are less likely to need a full slate of Gen Ed courses). 

We have created an extra sections pool (the equivalent of about 34 4-credit courses) that can be used, among other purposes, to open sections of courses where our estimates missed the mark and a critical mass of students needs another section of a specific course in order to progress towards graduation.  Extra sections will be approved by the dean and provost, and determined in collaboration with the General Education Director when Gen Ed courses are involved.

Course caps should be set higher than the target average class size, probably by about 20%.  Otherwise, the upper limit of the cap will make it almost impossible for a set of courses, in the aggregate, to reach the average target.

In conversation with the Honors director, two kinds of Honors courses were identified.  First, many courses are offered by the same program every time; these courses are included in the initial allocation of contact hours for the affected programs.  Second, some Honors courses rotate among faculty in various programs (e.g., Exploratory and Colloquium courses, Health and Wellness, Creative Arts); when faculty for those courses are selected in the Winter, additional releases for service to the Honors Program will be allocated to programs whose faculty support Honors.

When tenure-track faculty teach a First-Year Seminar course, their home problem will receive funding for an NTT taught course in the program.  When an NTT faculty member teaches a First-Year Seminar course, the NTT faculty member will be compensated for teaching.