Paradigm creators lay out alternatives

Supporters of the new scheduling proposals have been making the rounds of the Syracuse University community in open forums and informal discussions. On Monday, they made their case for the last time before the University Senate.

USen set aside the majority of its meeting for a discussion of the scheduling issue. The creators of the competing alternatives took time to outline and explain their proposals before the floor was opened up to debate by senators.

Although USen will not vote on the proposal until it meets again in November, the agenda committee laid out a time table for the discussion. Nahmin Horwitz, a physics professor and agenda committee chairman, presented a motion asking senators to choose between a ‘reasonably strict enforcement’ of the current scheduling paradigm, and for the adoption of the new paradigm presented by Ernest Hemphill, a biology professor and chairman of USen’s committee on instruction.

In order for the senators to consider any other alternative, including ones created by philosophy professor Robert Vangulick and Student Association President Andrew Thomson, the motion must be amended to replace one of the original proposals

Chancellor Kenneth A. Shaw prefaced the debate by outlining why he believes a change in SU’s scheduling system is necessary and why that change must be made by November. Shaw said he would like to see a scheduling paradigm selected in November so that the incoming chancellor is not saddled with its implementation. No matter which plan is chosen, Shaw said the current state of disorder cannot be allowed to stand.



‘What we have, fundamentally, is a paradigm that is not really a paradigm,’ Shaw said.

Shaw’s criticism of the current state of affairs was supplemented by Hemphill’s presentation, which gave a brief history of the scheduling problems and described the proposal he helped create with an ad hoc committee. He said the committee’s new paradigm is designed to give students maximum access to classes, but stressed that there is no perfect scheduling.

Thomson and Vangulick countered Hemphill’s proposal by describing student and faculty complaints. Vangulick cited the negative impact on part-time faculty, the loss of three-day weekend research periods and the need for at least one day between class meetings as flaws in the new paradigm.

Thomson charged that the simulations used to create the paradigm were flawed because they did not account for the fact that students are likely to change their course selection based on when the class meets. Because Vangulick and Thomson’s proposals are similar, they are jointly supporting any alternative that increases the number of 80-minute time blocks, tightly enforces class start-times and retains the current Monday-Wednesday-Friday and Tuesday-Thursday structure.

After peppering administrators with questions about the implementation of the plans, faculty weighed in on the proposals. Dennis Kinsey, a public relations professor, said since the decision to redesign the schedule was initiated after student requests, the Senate should seriously consider Thomson’s proposal. It seemed to be the plan that ‘best fits reality,’ he said.

Dean David Rubin of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications said he would support any of the three new proposals but added that enforcing the new paradigm would not be an option for Newhouse due to the insufficient number of 80-minute class blocks. He also said he would not support a ‘bureaucracy of exception,’ where requests for exemptions from a new paradigm would become so numerous they would negate the plan’s effectiveness.

‘Lets just stick to the basics when it comes to making things better,’ Rubin said.

While the debate will spill over into the November meeting, it will have to end there. Horwitz said the agenda committee will introduce a motion to end the debate at a set time and force a vote on the issue.





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