UP Town Hall II

On February 15th, 2012, the Instructional Space Task Force held its second town hall meeting on instructional space. Eighty-three (83) members from across 18 Penn State units attended the event. There were 15 faculty, 56 staff members, 1 student and 11 administrators. It was our largest and most diverse town hall meeting to date.

This meeting, like the others, was framed by a presentation given by Careen Yarnal.  The group broke out into smaller groups of 8-10 for facilitated discussions of the three questions we have honed over the course of the semester:

1. What elements of our current model of scheduling work?
2. What challenges have you faced in the past?
3. What should Penn State’s top 5 scheduling priorities be?

The feedback we received on the first two questions was consistent with our previous town hall meetings, January 31 and  November 1, 2011.  The slight shift in the formulation of the final question, however, generated a very interesting conversation and an insightful list of priorities.

Below is the list we established:

1. Student needs for classes (not student preference, but student academic need)
2. Pedagogical needs (more rooms like the Forum!, M and W 75 minute classes) (There was some support for swapping 1 and 2)
3. Rollover should be more limited. There should be rollover for non-standard times. Labs and studios should be labeled as standard.
4. Maximize space ( with a new system): flexibility for part semester courses; ghost classes should be prevented; hybrid courses accommodated
5. Flexibility across/between units
6. Efficiency standards, distribution of times mandated by the higher administration: times of classes, days of the week, etc.
7. Non-credit, co-curricular activities (FTCAP, etc.)
8. Total transparency of space; ability to look at space long term; open bulletin board to swap space
9. Protecting staff caught between competing interests (faculty, policy, etc)

If you want to learn more about the event, we invite you to watch it in its entirety here:

We invite your thoughts, comments and suggestions in the comments below.