Beginning in the spring of 2016, students will not only have more options for 75-minute class periods, but Centennial and Main Campuses will operate on a unified timetable, eliminating differences between class start-times. 

The faculty senate, the associate deans and records calendar committee green-lit Registration and Records to institute a unified university timetable, according to Louis Hunt, vice provost of the office of enrollment and management services and university registrar. 

The new timetable will allow the university to schedule more 75 minute classes throughout the week and will eliminate the 5-minute time differential for classes on Centennial campus. 

In 2005, a time differential, was added between Centennial campus and Main Campus classes to allow for travel time. However, according to Hunt, the time differential doesn’t actually work. 

Hunt said students don’t currently have enough time to wait for a bus, travel to main campus and get to another class during the allotted break time. 

The new schedule will eliminate the 8:05 a.m. start time, making the earliest offered classes start at 8:30 a.m. every day of the week.

The schedule changes will have several advantages, as data suggests most faculty and students prefer the 8:30 start to the 8:05 start time, Hunt said. 

The new timetable also has the potential to alleviate traffic congestion in the mornings.

“On the current schedule, many faculty and staff members arrive at 8 a.m. If students were to arrive later, there may be a staggering effect,” Hunt said.  

Certain subjects, such as foreign languages, mathematics or statistics might prefer the 50 minute class three or four days a week, whereas many of other disciplines prefer the 75 minutes two days a week, Hunt said. 

Hunt said that data collected by the Office of Registration and Records suggests some students prefer the 75 minute meeting pattern and would like to see more options available in that format. 

Hamlet Valladares, a junior studying electrical engineering, said that he would prefer longer classes. 

“I feel like if it’s a longer class then I can focus and get more work done rather than waiting for the time to run out right after getting to class,” Valladares said.

Hunt hopes the new schedule will help spread courses throughout the day to make scheduling easier for students, improve classroom utilization and improve exam scheduling.

“This simplifies the heck out of it, it’s kind of amazing,” Hunt said.

The common grid will get rid of non-standard times, where people are scheduling classes that don’t fit on the normal timetable. Non-standard times make it difficult for students to build a schedule, Hunt said. 

“Right now you hardly know when classes start, it used to be for years you just knew,” Hunt said. “It’s different every day of the week, it’s different on each campus.”

Hunt said that the biggest difference may be more of the 75 minute two-day class schedule over the traditional 50 minute three-day class schedule.

Hunt said the need for the timetable switch also stems from changing class formats and teaching structures, such as in hybrid courses and classes taught with recitation portions and problem sessions. 

“What we‘re trying to do is build a timetable that allows for innovation,” Hunt said.

The new scheduling minimizes conflicts between the class lengths, allowing faculty members to choose class formats that work best for their teaching methods, Hunt said.