A memo disputing a university study that reported switching from a Monday-Wednesday to a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule will maximize lecture space received little attention from administrators–even though President Donald Gerth said late last week that he is still open to alternative plans.

The memo, written by Communication Studies Department Chair Val Smith and obtained by The State Hornet, contests key statistical findings by Gerth’s faculty-administration task force and outlines various schemes outside the Gerth plan to maximize the number of sections offered students.

It also contends that the quality of campus instruction will suffer if 75-minute class sessions are chopped up into 50-minute doses.

When Gerth announced his decision to eliminate Monday-Wednesday prime time courses, he cited the task force’s conclusion that the move adds 25 percent more lecture space through increased schedule efficiency.

That figure assumes that six Monday-Wednesday-Friday sections?one per hour?will start at 9 a.m. with the last class ending at 2:50 p.m., according to a Sept. 27 presentation to the Faculty Senate by Vice President of Academic Affairs Paul Noble.

But the “Scheduling Task Force Report” that Noble wrote the morning before he spoke to the Faculty Senate allows for only five sections.

“During the hours between 9:00 and 1:50 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, all three-unit lecture classes shall be scheduled in a three-day, 50-minute MWF pattern with starting times on the hour (i.e. 9-9:50 through 1-1:50).”

Noble said this week that the new schedule implies that more sections would be also be added between 7:30 a.m. and 9:00 a.m., a time slot little-used right now.

Smith’s memo points out the discrepancy of the task force report.

“The Task Force proposal would replace eight prime-time class periods…with nine prime-time class periods under the MWF/TR design. That is an increase of 12.5 percent.”

Smith’s memo notes that the Monday-Wednesday-Friday plan would “effectively eliminate the 8 percent of sections now taught as three-hour Friday classes,” reducing the overall gain in new course offerings to 4.5 percent.

Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs Paul Noble rejected that figure when faculty questioned him during his presentation of Monday-Wednesday-Friday to the Faculty Senate on Sept. 27.

“I’m not willing to accept that estimate,” Noble said at the time.

Noble was a member of Gerth’s task force along with professors Jaime Alvayay, Laurel Heffernan, Mark Hennelly, and Richard Kornweibel, Health and Human Services Dean Marilyn Hopkins, and College of Arts and Letters Dean Nancy Tooker.

The group met on Sept. 24 and 25.

“I think we met about one hour one day and two hours the next,” Noble said.

No students were on the committee, a fact that prompted critics to question Gerth’s commitment to hearing student opinion about changing the fall 2002 schedule.

And although he announced on Oct. 1 that Monday-Wednesday classes between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. will end next year, last week he offered Associated Students, Inc. a chance to “submit alternative ideas” by Oct. 24. He did not, however, postpone his decision in the meantime.

Smith’s memo asks that Communication Studies courses outside those satisfying General Education requirements be exempt from any scheduling change since the department can “easily reach” Gerth’s goal of adding class sections under the current Monday-Wednesday, Tuesday-Thursday, Friday format.

The memo states, “Under our MW/TR/F format we have already achieved the expected level of productivity.”

According to Smith, his department offers plenty of weekend, evening and Friday-only classes plus eight-week, winter and summer courses.

Communication Studies was also the first department at Sac State to offer a degree program strictly through distance education.

Smith thinks that many other departments could follow a similar model and avoid Monday-Wednesday-Friday scheduling.

“I don’t want to be a rebel,” he said last week. “I support the president. I see the intent of the university to better use its facilities. But I wish they would allow more flexibility for departments to achieve the same goal without it incurring some obvious disadvantages for students.”

Smith’s memo also sites “a number of pedagogical reasons for consistent and longer (75-minute) classroom periods,” particularly the length of time needed per session to examine complex upper division concepts.

In spite of his observations, Smith’s says his suggestions have not been seriously considered by the administration.

“I’m disappointed that the alternative that I put forward didn’t receive a better hearing,” Smith told The State Hornet in an interview last week.

Smith said he sent the memo to Gerth and Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs Paul Noble, spoke directly to Noble and spoke before the Faculty Senate about innovative class schemes, all to no avail.

“I assume Gerth was not persuaded, probably because he doesn’t think we can have a Monday-Wednesday-Friday and a Monday-Wednesday schedule side-by-side,” Smith said.

Both Gerth and Noble have raised concerns that if all classes in all seven Sac State colleges do not adhere to the same format, that course overlaps and gaps would create conflicts or dead time in student schedules.

But even if courses are offered on different schedule formats, Smith’s memo notes, “only two of the eight prime-time MW/TR periods conflict with the MWF schedule (MW 10:30 and 1:30).”

Gerth announced last Friday in an informal meeting with Associated Students, Inc. that he is open to any ideas that will accomplish his goal of increasing student capacity to meet the swelling student enrollment anticipated in the coming years. ASI has until Oct. 24 to submit a plan.