Analysis of the Strategic Initiatives for the Block at Tusculum College

Changes to the Block currently under consideration by the strategic planning committee and administration consist of the following: first, dividing Block courses that normally last three

Running Head: BLOCK INITIATIVES

Analysis of the Strategic Initiatives for the Block at Tusculum College

Teresa Bagamery ClarkVanderbilt UniversityMay 2010

Analysis of the Strategic Initiatives for the

Block at Tusculum College

Executive Summary

Tusculum College in Greeneville, Tennessee

has operated on the “Block,” an academic

calendar in which students take—and

professors teach—one course at a time for a

period of 18 weekdays with several blocks

composing a semester, since 1994

However, now the strategic planning

committee at Tusculum has formulated a list

of potential changes to the Block with the

goal of enhancing the classroom experience

for students and faculty The proposed

initiatives would pilot during the timeframe

of 2009 to 2014 One of which, the

formation of living-learning communities,

was tested in 2008 and implemented in fall

2009 The purpose of this study is to

investigate the remaining three strategic

initiatives in order to recommend which, if

any, the college should implement next in

the pursuit of improving the Block at

Tusculum

Changes to the Block currently under

consideration by the strategic planning

committee and administration consist of the

following: first, dividing Block courses that

normally last three hours in either the

morning or afternoon into two

one-and-a-half-hour sessions per day (split courses);

second, moving from one course per block

to two courses at a time for a seven-week,

two-block period (parallel courses); and

finally, establishing a testing center, where

students would complete all assessments

currently administered in the classroom

The project questions for this study address

costs and benefits of each initiative, the

practices of peer institutions, meeting

students’ needs, and academic calendar and

course schedule options Through the use of

existing literature, best practices from other institutions, and focus groups, conclusions and recommendations are formulated regarding each initiative

From the focus groups, the major findings that resulted included that staff preferred theinitiative to establish a central testing location for all student exams to the other two proposed changes Whereas the faculty completely opposed this idea Faculty, choosing from among the available options, sided with the introduction of the split courses on a voluntary basis only Neither the faculty nor staff groups chose parallel courses as the next (i.e to follow living-learning communities) to implement, thoughthe faculty participants were open to trying multi-block courses as an optional format

Tusculum College in Greeneville,

Tennessee, the oldest college in the state,

is one of only four higher education

institutions in the United States that

operate on a block schedule, with the

defining feature of one course at a time in

a shortened term The other three

institutions that also use this academic

calendar and course schedule are as

follows: Cornell College in Mount Vernon,

Iowa, Colorado College in Colorado

Springs, Colorado, and the University of

Montana Western in Dillon, Montana

Cornell adopted the one course at a time

(OCAAT) plan in 1978, while Colorado’s

block schedule began earlier, in 1970

(Colorado College, 2009; Cornell College,

2009) The Block at Tusculum started

later, in 1992 (Tusculum College, 2009)

Most recently, public university Montana

Western transitioned to the Experience

One (X1) block schedule in 2004 (The

University of Montana Western) In

addition to the American examples, Quest

University near Vancouver, British

Columbia opened just a few years ago and

operates classes on a block plan (Quest

University, 2009)

In an effort to improve the Block

experience for students and faculty at

Tusculum, the college has implemented

one change so far and may implement

others before 2014 The only initiative on

the Tusculum College Strategic Plan

2009-2014 that is in effect today is known

as 4.3 and involves living-learning

communities, or cohorts, which the college

introduced in 2008 and renewed on a

permanent basis in 2009 The remaining

initiatives that Tusculum may pilot and

implement include parallel courses, split

courses, and a testing center These

proposed alterations to the Block are not

necessarily bundled as three parts of one package, nor are they mutually exclusive Though the question remains, which, if any, Tusculum should adopt

Proposed Initiatives Initiative 4.1: Provide the opportunity for

students to take two compatible courses,simultaneously, over a seven-week (two

blocks) period

Initiative 4.2: Change current class

scheduling to minimize challenge ofmaintaining academic engagement for threehours and to increase opportunities forstudent and faculty outside-of-class

interaction.

Initiative 4.4: Reduce the pedagogical

limitations of the block by capturing asmuch instructional time as possible in eachclass session by removing assessment and

testing from class sessions

Note: Tusculum has already implemented Initiative 4.3

Definition of the Issue

The purpose of this study is to investigate Tusculum’s proposed strategic initiatives for the Block and make recommendations

as to whether the college should implementany or all This study is at the request of a member of the senior leadership team at Tusculum in order to provide a research base and informed suggestions for Tusculum

The primary research questions are as

follows:

 “What are the costs and benefits of the proposed strategic plan

initiatives?”

 “Do the strategic initiatives meet the

needs of our current students?”

 “Are there other initiatives that

should be considered as part of the

‘block plan enhancement’ goal?”

The secondary research questions, or

sub-questions, are as follows:

 “What strategic initiatives among the

three remaining delineated in the

Strategic Plan would be the best one

to pilot and implement next

(following the Living-Learning

Communities)?”

 “How have Colorado College and

Cornell College changed their

version of the Block, if at all, in

order to manage student expectations

and produce better learning

outcomes?”

 “Other than the Block and the

traditional semester calendar, what

other academic calendars exist?”

Contextual Analysis

In part to answer the project question

regarding Colorado and Cornell, and to

properly consider each initiative charted

above, it is important to lay the foundation

that explores the Block at institutions similar

to Tusculum The college’s primary peer

institutions, as pertaining to course schedule

and academic calendar, include Colorado

College and Cornell College Both

Colorado and Cornell preceded Tusculum in

adopting a block format Since Tusculum’s

adoption in 1994, two additional universities

have joined their ranks: the University of

Montana- Western also in the United States

and Quest University in Canada Hiram

College in Hiram, Ohio does not constitute a

pure block format but does operate some

courses in two three-week terms per year

(Hiram College, 2009)

To gather information regarding the other block plans, the data collection methods included website research for all the institutions, phone interviews with a faculty member from Colorado College and Cornell College, respectively, as well as articles and documents about Colorado The phone interviews were scheduled with the two interviewees via email and each conducted

in one phone conversation, with the Colorado call on a separate day from Cornell A set of questions was formulated prior to the phone call; although the intention was to use these questions as a guide, so during the phone call the faculty member from each respective institution often spoke freely instead of as a response to

a direct question Faculty members were informed via email as well as on the phone call that the researcher was conducting a project as a Vanderbilt University graduate student at Tusculum College regarding the Block The interview questions were utilized to provide direction (Appendix A)

Colorado College

Colorado College, one of four institutions in the United States that operates on a block system discovered in the 1970s that changing to a “modular plan” was possible (Brooks, 1969) The faculty at Colorado, the mother of the block, reexamined both academics and student life in the 1960s and arrived at the shortened term with only one course (Pope, 2007) A group of professors asked the question, “Why can’t the college give me 15 students and let me work just with them?” (Pope, 2007) That musing gavebirth to the block

Early on, considerations for the new block schedule included construction, registration and enrollment, space, and fixtures The idea of the block stemmed from a review

showing that students and faculty possessed

conflicting demands and a lack of control

over their own schedules The trial block

plan included single courses,

interdisciplinary courses (with two or three

professors), and groups of “dissimilar

courses of varying lengths” (Brooks, 1969)

Today, Colorado offers some courses lasting

two or three blocks each (Colorado College,

2009)

Colorado’s faculty proposed three- six- and

nine-week blocks of time, throughout the

year, resulting in a 33-week calendar The

concept was to offer one course at a time,

with the professor setting the meeting times

for his or her own course (Brooks, 1969)

Some concern arose regarding courses such

as the sciences, so modules of nine weeks

were meant for courses “not amenable to

intensive study” that needed more time

(Brooks, 1969) A separate study suggests

accelerated schedules may not be

appropriate for upper-division classes

(Daniel, 2000)

The early block plan included half-courses,

which met partially in the early morning and

completed in the late morning (Brooks,

1969) Professors could teach two courses

per block, or two sections of the same

course Late afternoon and early evening

sections included dance, choir, and others

that were considered “adjunct courses.”

Students could take half-time courses, such

as dance and music, along with principle

(main) courses Faculty would teach 30 out

of 33 weeks, and students would attend class

a total of 120 weeks to graduate (30 weeks

per year) (Brooks, 1969)

Despite some debate, Colorado’s faculty

supported the new block schedule, also

known as modular learning (Pope, 2007) In

2007, the college’s president, Richard

Celeste, explained the reasons why more

institutions have not boarded the block bandwagon: the expense of maintaining small classes (averaging 16 students) and of using 122 classrooms at one time for classes (Pope, 2007)

Today, one perspective is that Colorado is reconsidering its model (Daniel, 2000) On the other hand, no one is calling for a complete makeover of the 40-year-old format, (Pope, 2007; Colorado faculty, personal communication, September 22, 2009) President Celeste says proof that the block works is evident in positive feedback from students and parents (Pope, 2007) Unlike Tusculum, where each class meets for three hours in the morning or afternoon for one block, Colorado offers some courses lasting two or three blocks each (Colorado College, 2009) In addition, faculty decide what time their courses will begin and end,

so classes could meet in the morning or afternoon and for more than three hours (Colorado College, 2009) Despite this flexibility, the average class meets 9:00 a.m

to 12:00 p.m (Colorado faculty, personal communication, September 22, 2009) Colorado also has half-block courses, which meet for 10 days, such as between the last block of the fall and the first block of the spring (Colorado College, 2009)

Colorado’s enrollment reached 1,975 undergraduate students as of spring 2009 (Colorado College, 2010) The median ACTscore for Colorado’s freshmen is 29 (the highest of all Block institutions) Colorado also boasts the highest graduation rate at 80.9% for both a four-year rate of the class

of 2008 and a seven-year rate of the class of

2011 In academic year 2008-2009, 87% of Colorado’s freshmen graduated from high school in the top quarter of their class, while67% graduated in the top 10% As of fall

2007, Colorado’s retention rate soared at

94.1% Colorado’s tuition for 2009-2010 is

listed as $37,278, and when room and board,

books, and travel expenses add in, the price

tag amounts to about $49,000 (Colorado

College, 2010)

Cornell College

Cornell’s “One Course at a Time.” OCAAT

serves as another example of the focused,

block format (Cornell College) In 1978, the

dean asked faculty to consider moving to the

new calendar to increase the college’s

attractiveness to students, increase its

distinction, and for pedagogical advantages

(Cornell faculty, personal communication,

September 11, 2009) In the first vote, about

a third of the faculty opposed the block

calendar, and much tension played out

during the first several years following

OCAAT’s inception Some faculty left,

because they did not like the format, but

others converted Today, professors join

Cornell’s faculty primarily due to OCCAT,

and rarely is the schedule the reason faculty

members leave (Cornell faculty)

The faculty member who provided

first-hand information about OCAAT has taught

at Cornell for nearly 30 years, and had never

taught in any other academic calendar before

(Cornell faculty, personal communication,

September 11, 2009) He says the faculty

must be ready when the course starts, due to

the block’s fast pace and lack of course

preparation time throughout OCAAT

encourages faculty to determine why and

how they are grading as well as to become

better at teaching and grading, because

faculty cannot assign a 20-page research

paper to be due by the end of the block

Faculty, who teach six to nine blocks per

year, may need to use their weekends to

grade, but having a scoring rubric set up

ahead of time helps to increase consistency

across papers He says the only thing a

professor thinks about is the one course he

or she is teaching at any particular time, but adds that while it can be consuming “it’s fun” (Cornell faculty)

Similar to parallel courses, students can takelink courses, in an interdisciplinary approach

to course scheduling but in separate blocks (Cornell faculty, personal communication, September 11, 2009) Cornell offers link courses for first-year sociology and geology courses, for example Students may take sociology in the first block and geology in the third, but both courses will focus on one theme (e.g consumption) (Cornell faculty)

As with the parallel course option, few courses are offered as links Cornell experimented with offering interdisciplinary link courses in a parallel format, such as biology and psychology courses that deal with the common theme of cognition Each course would contain a different group of students, but the courses would “link,” or meet as a combined class at certain points throughout one block Cornell is looking to take this approach with its environmental studies program (Cornell faculty)

As with Colorado and Tusculum, each course (other than parallel courses) meets for three and one half weeks, with a four-daybreak between However, whereas

Tusculum’s courses meet for three hours in the morning or afternoon, and Colorado’s courses meet whenever the faculty would like, Cornell’s professors teach half of the class 9:00 to 11:00 a.m and the other half inthe afternoons from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m (Cornell College, 2009) Each course totals four credits, as is common with block programs

Cornell’s calendar is comprised of four blocks in the fall, four in the spring, and one

in May, with no summer classes (Cornell

College, 2009) The summer provides time

for students to go home, work, travel, and

volunteer Benefits of OCAAT include

study abroad and internships, as such travel

takes place within one block and does not

interfere with any other courses The

students enjoy that they do not have to

worry about other courses while on trips In

addition, the faculty speak highly of the

immersion into one subject at a time as well

as the high level of faculty-student

interaction afforded by OCAAT (Cornell

College, 2009)

For academic year 2008-2009, Cornell’s

full-time enrolled undergraduates reached

1,111 students (Cornell College, 2009) The

retention rate for the same year, from

freshman to sophomore years, was 82%,

about 14% below Colorado Their six-year

graduation rate is 71%, almost 10% lower

than Colorado’s four- and seven-year rates

Cornell’s class of 2012 came to college with

an average ACT of 26, lower than

Colorado’s students, and average GPA of

3.44 Students pay $35,000 per academic

year in tuition, and including room and

board as well as books and travel expenses,

the total price of attendance amounts to

about $45,000 (Cornell College, 2010)

The University of Montana Western

The University of Montana Western arrived

at the block party somewhat later than

Cornell and Tusculum In 1987, the

University of Montana merged with Western

Montana College to create an institution

temporarily named Western Montana

College of the University of Montana The

Board of Regents approved its renaming to

the University of Montana Western in 2001

Just a few years later, in fall 2004, the

university piloted Experience One (X1) for

all first-time freshmen A full campus

conversion to X1 began in fall 2005, and the

university continues to operate on a block calendar today (The University of Montana Western, 2009)

As with Tusculum, Montana Western’s block plan, Experience One operates as one course at a time for 18 days for three hours per day (The University of Montana Western, 2009) Also, in common with Tusculum, students at Montana Western take

a four-day break between blocks Each course results in four credits for students, and four blocks fill one semester As seen with Colorado, most classes have 16 or fewer students, and the largest classes contain only 30 The 1,154 undergraduate students at Montana Western (as of 2008-2009) take four blocks in the fall and spring,respectively, with three summer blocks (Montana Western, 2009) However, in addition to 18-day courses, students may also take full semester (or, multi-block) classes during the fall, spring, and summer (Montana Western, 2009)

Students engage in “authentic workforce activities” instead of lecture, that Montana Western administration hope will give their students an edge in the workforce and graduate school (Montana Western, 2009) Other advantages of X1’s block format include the attention and assistance provided

by professors, because each professor concentrates on one group of students per block In addition, students participate in experiential, innovative, and

interdisciplinary learning experiences afforded by the intensive format of X1 (Montana Western, 2009)

Montana Western’s tuition for freshmen and sophomores is $1,401, while it is $1,953.60 for juniors and seniors, each in addition to room ($1,090) and board ($1,665) (MontanaWestern, 2010) The average GPA of the freshmen, who can study one of 90 different

academic areas, is 3.0, but only 21%

graduated in the top 25% of their high

school class Montana Western’s freshman

to sophomore retention rate was 65% as of

fall 2009 Although that is as much as 20%

lower than the other Block institutions, U.S

News and World Report ranked the

institution eighteenth in western

baccalaureate-granting colleges (Montana

Western, 2010)

Quest University

Quest University, located near Vancouver,

British Columbia, acts as the Canadian sister

to Colorado, Cornell, Tusculum, and

Montana Western Following the common

theme, students in Quest’s block plan take

one class at a time for three hours a day and

three and one half weeks (Quest University,

2009) As with Montana Western, Quest’s

calendar includes four blocks per term

However, unlike the others, Quest

University, the block institution in Canada,

does not offer courses lasting longer than

one block period Students at Quest take

only three-and-a-half week courses (Quest

University, 2009) Montana Western and

Quest are the two newest institutions to offer

one course every 18 days as a regular

academic calendar

Quest’s block plan advantages appear very

similar to those espoused by the American

block institutions The block provides

opportunities for field trips and outdoor

experiential learning as well as off-campus

internships Students focus on one subject at

a time, as with other block colleges, which

promotes immersion and engagement In

addition, students participate in small-group

work in breakout rooms, instead of sitting

through three hours of lecture per day

(Quest University, 2009)

As with Colorado, Cornell, and Tusculum, Quest is a private institution Whereas students at Montana Western take three blocks during the summer, students at Quest enroll in only two (Quest University, 2009) Quest’s Foundation Program composes the first two years of students’ college careers, with 16 required courses taken over four terms, with multiple blocks per term In the first term, students take Cornerstone during the first block, and by the last block of the fourth term, they enroll in Your Question During the first two years of courses, each student formulates his or her research question and proceeds to investigate and answer it during years three and four (Quest University, 2009)

Quest, which just opened in 2002, by far the youngest of the Block institutions, enrolls

142 students, but is growing toward its maximum capacity of 800 Tuition costs

$25,000 per academic year plus $8,000 for room and board (Quest University, 2010)

Hiram College

While Hiram is not considered to the extent

of the other institutions for the purposes of this study, it is worth noting due to its modified block Students at Hiram engage

in two three-week blocks per year, as the college divides regular semesters into a 12-week term and three-week term (Hiram College, 2009) During the short term, students take one course for four days per week, instead of five at the block

institutions, for three to four hours per day Students may also use their three weeks for internships and travel courses Hiram’s enrollment sets at 1,200 undergraduates with

31 percent of freshmen coming from the top

10 percent of their high school class (Hiram College, 2010)

Tusculum College

Tusculum College’s 2010-2011 tuition

price, including room and board, is posted

as $27,920 per year, a sticker price less

than Colorado, Cornell, and Quest

(Tusculum College, 2010) Also, 97% of

Tusculum students receive some form of

financial aid In 2008, 800 traditional

undergraduates attended Tusculum The

average ACT score sets at 22 (lower than

both Colorado College and Cornell

College) The students’ average high

school GPA is 3.3, lower than Cornell but

higher than the University of Montana

Western (Tusculum College, 2010)

Data Collection and Analysis

This project used focus groups, in addition

to an investigation of the literature, as the

research method to answer the primary

questions:

 “What are the costs and benefits of

the proposed strategic plan

initiatives?”

 “Do the strategic initiatives meet the

needs of our current students?”

 “Are there other initiatives that

should be considered as part of the

‘block plan enhancement’ goal?”

as well as two of the three

sub-questions:

 “What strategic initiatives among the

four delineated in the Strategic Plan

would be the best one to pilot

and implement next (following the

Living-Learning

Communities)?”

 “Other than the Block and the

traditional semester calendar, what

other academic calendars exist?”

The site coordinator for this project at

Tusculum suggested the data collection

method of focus groups for this study It

was determined that the best groups to interview in a focus group style would be faculty and staff in order to ascertain their thoughts and feelings about the strategic initiatives for the Block Focus groups, as a qualitative method in which a small group ofpeople are asked open-ended questions, havebecome increasingly utilized (Patton, 2002) Focus groups allow the researcher to hear first-hand about the real-life circumstances around the project questions Although, focus groups are generally conducted on homogenous groups, they also can show if any differences of opinion or varying perspectives exist among different people experiencing the same environment or situation (Patton, 2002)

Focus group questions are arranged around one topic, in this case, the proposed

initiatives to enhance the Block at Tusculum(Patton, 2002) Individual groups typically

do not exceed 10 participants, and one session lasts one to two hours A focus group session is basically an interview, but ittakes into account that people function in a social setting with others Participants can comment or build on what their peers say during the meeting, instead of answering questions one-on-one in an interview The purpose of a focus group is to gather quality information in a social setting, and those involved can either agree or disagree with one another without consequence (Patton, 2002)

Focus groups serve as a respectable researchmethod for several reasons They are efficient in terms of time and money, as the researcher can speak with several people in

a short period of time (Patton, 2002) The group’s interaction yields richer responses than perhaps in one-on-one interviews The researcher should be able to ascertain whether group members agree or disagree and identify trends across responses

However, limitations include needing to

restrict the number of questions based on

time allotted In addition, individuals’

comments may be hindered in order to allow

time for other participants to speak (Patton,

2002)

For this study, faculty and staff each

answered a separate interview protocol list

of questions, but much overlap between the

question sets existed (Appendix B) For

both groups, the protocol sections included

the following: Baseline, Costs and Benefits,

Current Students’ Needs, Other Initiatives,

Next to Implement, and Alternative

Calendar Faculty answered a greater

number of questions than did staff in the

Costs and Benefits and Next to Implement

areas, because they are better equipped to

respond to inquiries regarding course

preparation, in-class experiences, and

instruction

After receiving approval from Vanderbilt

University’s Institutional Review Board

(IRB) and Tusculum College’s Associate

Provost for Academic Affairs (she did not

deem that the proposal required forwarding

to the IRB), plans to organize focus groups

moved forward To solicit volunteers for the

focus groups, the provost sent an email

(Appendix C) to all faculty and staff with

Tusculum email addresses requesting they

participate on a voluntary basis The email

also included information concerning the

location as well as time slots available for

faculty and staff groups The goal was to

keep the faculty and staff in separate

sessions in accordance with the interview

protocols The site coordinator’s office

scheduled the volunteers in groups

according to specific times On the day of

the focus groups, each participant was given

a consent form by the principal investigator

(Appendix D) with a place to check whether

he or she agreed to audio recording during

the session as well as a signature line Copies of the consent forms were made available to each faculty and staff member before the departed from the room

The focus group participants were arranged into two faculty groups and two staff ones The self-reported ages of the focus group respondents ranged from 25 to 65 Overall, two participants were in their twenties, seven thirties, five in their forties, three in their fifties, five sixties, and one person whospecified “over 21.” One respondent wrote down “6-,” and could possibly be over age

65, the oldest age reported

The first time slot (9:00 a.m.) belonged to faculty, and included five people (two females, and three males) One male checked the box on the consent form that he did not permit the session to be audio recorded, so this focus group session was not recorded At 11:00 a.m., the first staff group met and included five females and three males All members consented to voice recording, so this session was taped The third focus group of the day was scheduled for staff, and several people had signed up for this time slot However, only one staff person came at the appointed time,

so she left and returned later to join in with the faculty focus group It is unclear as to why none of the other staff members for the 1:00 p.m meeting did not come, although participants in the following faculty focus group expressed some confusion over the email they had received with details about the meeting times

The last focus group of the day met at 3:00 p.m and included nine faculty members andone staff member (from the 1:00 staff group) It should be noted that the investigator assumes the participants in this group were indeed faculty members as planned; they were not questioned regarding

this point For focus groups, a manageable

size per session was desired The sample

size ultimately resulted based on willingness

to volunteer for, and then come to, the focus

groups However, these focus groups can be

considered representative of all faculty and

staff at Tusculum

The total number of focus group participants

throughout the day reached 23: 14 faculty

and nine staff The goal number for the

study had been between 10 and 14 staff and

10 to 14 faculty members, total, in order to

keep the numbers manageable in terms of

the volunteers’ ability and ease of

participation Tusculum employs about 84

faculty, and nearly 200 staff members,

according to the college’s website, or 76

faculty and 228 staff according to the human

resources office (Tusculum College, 2010;

Sonner, 2010) For the purposes of the

following calculations, human resources’

figures provide the basis Note that some

faculty members also act as administrators

and so listed in both capacities online In

other words, some faculty members counted

in the 84 are also counted in the 200, which

lowers the percentage of the staff that the for

which the focus group participants account

(Tusculum College, 2010.)

The faculty volunteers made up slightly

more than 18% of the college’s total faculty,

and the staff participants composed only

about 4% Another way to look at the focus

group participants alongside Tusculum’s

faculty and staff as a whole besides quantity

includes total years of service Among the

84 faculty members, 72 (almost 86%) have

worked at the college for 20 or fewer years,

while only three have worked at Tusculum

for more than 40 years Of the 14 faculty

focus group participants, 12 (about 86%)

had worked at Tusculum for less than 11

years, and no one had served more than 30

In terms of years worked at Tusculum, the

focus group faculty closely matched the faculty at large

All staff members in the focus groups had worked at Tusculum for 20 or fewer years, with almost 78% having no more than 10 years of service Among all staff,

approximately 82% began working at Tusculum in the last 10 years (Sonner, 2010) Based on the start dates of the college’s staff as of December 2009, the staff participants of the November focus groups are representative in terms of years worked at Tusculum

Another way in which the focus group participants closely mirrored all of Tusculum’s faculty and staff is by gender About 65% of the focus group volunteers, or

15 of 23, were female based on the investigator’s observation Similarly, as of December 2009, approximately 65% of all faculty were female and 60% of all staff members were female (Sonner, 2010) Finally, in terms of age, the faculty and staff focus group members combined, 58% were under age 50, according to the ages they self-reported on the informed consent forms.About 65% of all staff were under 50 years

of age at the end of 2009, based on their birth years (Sonner, 2010) Among all of Tusculum’s faculty, nearly 54% were under age 50 in 2009, again based on birth years (Sonner, 2010) In this way, the focus groups continued to represent the larger staffand faculty population

Initially this study was intended to be a mixed-methods research project with a survey designed and meant for Tusculum undergraduate students However, due to anunexpected decrease in research personnel,

it became necessary to abandon the quantitative portion of the study A purely qualitative study fit the research questions

and satisfactorily served the site coordinator.

From the beginning, she had asked for focus

groups to be conducted, and this study met

that request

A separate research team working with

Tusculum on a separate study administered

surveys to students So in the end, by not

utilizing surveys for this study, students

were saved from survey fatigue In addition,

while not holding focus groups with students

could be a limitation, the research questions

lent themselves to the faculty and staff

instead However, student focus groups

would have provided another dimension of

feedback from a third group of involved

participants (in addition to faculty and staff)

and could have influenced the conclusions

and recommendations made herein Further

research regarding the initiatives should

include student interviews or focus groups

for good measure The other research team

did not survey faculty or staff, focusing only

on students for data collection

After the protocol was approved and the

focus group conducted, additional questions

came to mind as well as better ways to word

questions that had been already asked The

focus groups were over, so it was too late to

edit the lists of questions for faculty and

staff Perhaps if the protocol had been

piloted during a rehearsal, then awkward

wording would have come to light along

with other questions that could have been

added or substituted to more precisely

answer the research questions Also, in

hindsight, more probing questions should

have been incorporated into the focus group

meetings

Detailed notes taken during the focus groups

along with additional notes made while

listening to the voice recordings served to

present trends in the responses First,

common responses were uncovered with in

the staff and faculty focus groups separately.Then, from both faculty and staff focus groups, trend responses that connected both segments of participants also provided information for themes stretching beyond the boundary of faculty or staff The table below provides a snapshot of the most common responses that surfaced in the focusgroups as they relate to each initiative In addition several matrices were constructed

to answer the project questions and address each initiative (Appendix E) Matrices included project question by initiative, project question with corresponding focus groups questions, initiatives with focus group questions, and project questions by methods Baseline information gathered at the beginning of the focus groups is

reflected in Appendix F

The remaining sub-question that the focus groups did not address: “How have Colorado College and Cornell College changed their version of the Block, if at all,

in order to manage student expectations and produce better learning outcomes?” was answered by the phone calls with Colorado and Cornell faculty, the colleges’ websites, and literature about Colorado’s block plan

Trends from Focus GroupsInitiative 4.1 Initiative 4.2 Initiative

4.4Concern for

commuters, athletes, working students

Concern for commuters, athletes, working students

Staff: For

Difficult for the sciences

Difficult for the sciences

Faculty: AgainstChange

recruiting Change recruitingScheduling

issues

Academic time Faculty: If

optional Faculty: If Optional

Findings Initiative 4.1: Provide the opportunity for

students to take two compatible courses,

simultaneously, over a seven-week (two

blocks) period.

Primary Question 1: “What are the costs

and benefits of the proposed strategic plan

initiatives?”

For each initiative, staff and faculty focus

group volunteers answered questions

concerning the costs and benefits Initiative

4.1 in the strategic planning committee’s

recommendations for enhancing the Block

involves changing at least some courses into

seven-week, or two-block, courses and

pairing them, so that students take two

courses concurrently Neither the staff nor

the faculty members who participated in the

focus groups especially favored this

initiative The questions posed to the staff

for 4.1’s costs and benefits are as follows:

 In what ways, if at all, do you

think the initiative to “take two

compatible courses,

simultaneously, over a

seven-week period” would affect how

you feel about your job at

Tusculum?

 How, if at all, would this

initiative cost you financially?

The wording of the questions differed

slightly for the faculty focus groups:

 In what ways, if at all, do you

think the initiative to “take two

compatible courses,

simultaneously, over a

seven-week period” would affect how

you feel about your position at

Tusculum?

 If Tusculum enacted the initiative

of “two compatible courses, simultaneously, over a seven-week period,” how would that change your course preparation? Classroom instruction?

 If Tusculum enacted the initiative

of “two compatible courses, simultaneously, over a seven-week period,” would you consider leaving your academic appointment at Tusculum? Wouldyou leave?

 How, if at all, would this initiative cost you financially? Costs

Participants in the staff group expressed concern that this type of schedule change would affect the institution’s recruiting message, since not all classes would function on one Block They voiced that some subjects such as education work better

on the Block than they would over the course of seven weeks Faculty also commented that the sciences would not work well in seven weeks due to space and equipment limitations Faculty worried that running some courses on a Block plan, which lasts for 18 weekdays, and others in seven weeks would make coordinating schedules too difficult In addition, the entire faculty but one spoke to the sentiment offered by one of member that they would

“hate to see us move away from block entirely.” They thought it could appear conceptually attractive, but as one person who had communicated with Colorado College when working on the initial Block plan said, “you do the block or you don’t do the block.” In general, the faculty indicated the seven-week schedule would be a mistakeand would result in a high turnover in faculty, if the administration required the

initiative as mandatory for all professors and

courses

Benefits

On the other hand, staff felt that the

seven-week courses could serve as an

improvement for faculty, simply due to more

time for each course Some subjects, for

example business, may be better served by

two blocks, as both staff and faculty

articulated Classes such as athletic training

and Reading and Language Arts (which is an

education course) already operate on a

two-block schedule Faculty and staff reiterated

that although most classes currently last for

three hours per day, academic time is

supposed to span from 8:30 a.m until 3:30

p.m., already encompassing morning and

afternoon As one staff member said, “We

sell it (the Block) as 8:30 to 3:30 academic

time.” With this frame of mind, moving to a

schedule that featured both morning and

afternoon classes each day would not hurt

There arose some sense that members of the

faculty would be willing to try the two-block

courses if it was presented in an informal

and experimental manner One faculty

person thought more time for classes would

be an improvement Another participant

shared that athletic training classes have run

on two blocks for five or six years Also, the

education course, Reading and Language

Arts operates on two blocks, so Tusculum

has at least a small amount of experience in

running both block-length and seven-week

courses Two faculty members thought this

initiative would suit business courses well,

citing 18 days as too short a period of time

to grasp business concepts and build teams

Another faculty member mentioned

converting computer science courses to this

two-block format The benefits of this

initiative outweigh the costs according to the

faculty and staff

Primary Question 2: “Do the strategic initiatives meet the needs of our current students?”

The following questions were posed to faculty and staff focus groups concerning whether Initiative 4.1 met the needs of current students:

 Which, if any, of these initiatives meets the needs of Tusculum’s current students? (Two courses inseven weeks, One course split between morning and afternoon

in the Block, Testing Center.) Which one(s) and how?

 Which ones, if any, do not meet the needs of Tusculum’s current students? (Two courses in seven weeks, One course split between morning and afternoon in the Block, Testing Center.) Why not?Faculty and staff members agreed that changing the course schedule to two coursesper seven weeks did not meet the overall needs of Tusculum’s current students They said this was the case particularly for studentathletes who train in the afternoons as well

as for working students who go to work afterclass In addition, the consensus was that if the administration implemented this

initiative, the college would be moving away from its niche, which is the Block The respondents did not want the institution

to lose its identifying feature, that which distinguishes it from other colleges and universities

Literature on Initiative 4.1: Course pairings

To further explore the initiative to institute parallel courses in terms of what courses should be paired and how, a thorough investigation of existing literature, including

best practices, was conducted This

initiative involves some, if not all, courses

changing from one per block to two over the

span of seven weeks To determine to which

courses this should apply, the strategic

planning committee would organize a

faculty taskforce in summer 2010 This

taskforce would then need to consider the

curriculum of each course to first decide if it

should change from one Block to seven

weeks They would also need to decide

which courses would successfully pair

together or could run as interdisciplinary

courses based on subject and, as suggested

in a faculty focus group, conceptual density

For example, the faculty thought biology

may not pair well with chemistry, but a more

appropriate set may be composition with

literature

One way to introduce the pairing of courses

is by developing teaching teams with

disciplines that naturally fit well together

(Braxton and Del Favero, 2000) Besides

two faculty members from the same

academic department teaching together, they

can teach cross-departmental courses (Bess,

2000) Such collaboration between

professors can be rewarding for them

(Braxton and Del Favero, 2000) In

addition, faculty members can offer courses

in which students make conceptual and

philosophical connections across different

academic subjects, for example, the

sociology and psychology example at

Cornell (Bess, 2000)

The Association for Supervision and

Curriculum Development (ASCD) released

a 1989 report that cited curriculum

integration as a top issue in higher education

(Burton, 2001) The problems with

curriculum included a lack of focus and

structure (potpourri) and departmental turf

wars (polarity) The solution to the problems

of potpourri and polarity comes in the form

of curriculum integration with a carefully thought-out scope and sequence of courses along with a combination of

interdisciplinary and discipline-specific courses (Burton, 2001) The term cross-disciplinary means that courses of several disciplines are positioned side by side with

no formal integration

“Pluridisciplinary” indicates the course disciplines are related (such as math and physics) Finally, “transdisciplinary” means that the curriculum begins with a problem and uses knowledge from many or all disciplines to solve it (Burton, 2001) For example, the University of Hawaii uses curriculum integration by forming linkages

in knowledge, grouping courses by theme, and encouraging learners to see connections (Burton, 2001)

Higher education institutions including Birmingham-Southern College have begun

to blend business with liberal arts, while those such as Dominican University have combined liberal arts and sciences (Paris, 2007) Meanwhile, Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, Michigan provides cross-disciplinary studies among the arts andhumanities, natural sciences, technology, and social science (Altieri and Cygnar, 1997) Cy-Fair even utilizes an

interdisciplinary office arrangement for faculty to collaborate across disciplines; for example, traditional departments are not clustered together in wings or on the same floor; instead, an English professor may sit next to a business professor next to a scienceprofessor, and so on (Ashburn, 2006)

A symposium was held to address concerns about a decline in college graduates in the liberal arts concurrent to a rise in graduates from pre-professional and technical

programs (Paris, 2007) The symposium explored measures institutions are taking to

promote an interdisciplinary approach to

undergraduate education, primarily as that

incorporates liberal arts and business The

idea of interdisciplinary courses, or

“blending,” combines traits of a traditional

liberal arts curriculum into a business

program Birmingham-Southern College

blends business and liberal arts, while

Dominican University integrates the liberal

arts with sciences At Mars Hill College,

students of all majors engage in a course

called Civic Life, or “what constitutes a

‘good person’” to provide an in-class

experience that spans all academic subjects

(Paris, 2007) As another example,

Bridgewater College provides

interdisciplinary courses that integrate the

liberal arts and professional education

(Paris, 2007)

Washtenaw Community College, founded in

1966 in Michigan, has a core curriculum

composed of four skills categories:

communication, critical thinking, math, and

computer literacy (Altieri and Cygnar,

1997) It also features the following content

areas: art and humanities, natural science,

technology, and social science The core is

imposed across the curriculum with

cross-disciplinary subjects Accreditation

requirements led them to build such a core

beginning in 1993 Washtenaw’s goal for

the core was to serve faculty and students

However, this included eliminating more

than 100 courses from the curriculum on the

basis of faculty-driven evaluation Faculty

and students became engaged in the process

of forming the core, as well, and the

conclusion is that the resulting courses

provide all parties involved with flexibility

and fluidity at Washtenaw (Altieri and

Cygnar, 1997)

Considering interdisciplinary education

from a different lens, at Brown University,

students create their own curricula

(Donnelly-Smith, 2008) In 1969, Brown officially removed the general education core curriculum from its degree

requirements, and this remained unchanged for over 40 years In 2007, the university revisited the curriculum and laid a new framework for liberal education, however still without requirement specific general education courses For Brown, the academicplan concerns quality and context instead of university-specified content Courses allow for collaboration and application, while providing students with more choices and freedom in creating their schedules (Donnelly-Smith, 2008)

One author extends some caution concerning the trend toward interdisciplinary courses His concern rests

in whether interdisciplinary work will simply one day recreate the departmental silos that have existed in higher education (Jacob, 2009) However, interdisciplinary efforts currently unite separate departments for efficiency, common efforts, and for grantpurposes This trend stems from

postmodern rumblings in the 1950s, with a synthesis of themes in American culture (Jacob, 2009)

Today there spans a diffusion of ideas acrosshumanities, social sciences, as well as education and other applied fields

Information flowed across the boundaries of these disciplines The author questions whether existing interdisciplinary fields are truly so, or if academic specialization exists within them Interdisciplinary courses may lead to another level of fragmentation as many new offices and centers pop up, so they require strong, high-quality disciplines

to maintain partnerships While perhaps interdisciplinary curriculum may not be the ultimate panacea for higher education, it does allow professors flexibility in

collaborating with other academic

departments besides their own (Jacob, 2009)

Literature on Initiative 4.1: Calendar

lengths

When considering parallel courses, not only

what courses should be paired, but also the

proposed seven-week term, deserve

exploration in the literature A study

concerning math and course scheduling

asked “does the length of term (affect) the

final grade or anxiety level?” for statistics

students in 16-week semesters, five-week

summer terms, and inter-sessions between

semesters (Bell, 2001) Using the Statistical

Anxiety Rating Scale (STARS), the results

showed course length has a relationship with

anxiety, with the shorter length associated

with increased anxiety (Bell, 2001)

Another study also echoes this phenomenon

of increased student stress as a result of an

accelerated course (Daniel, 2000)

Research was conducted on a block-style

accounting class, which lasted three hours

per day for a period of three weeks (Howell

and Johnson, 1982) The findings showed

the course benefited students who worked

full-time, but a marginal difference occurred

in the increased stress exhibited in the

compressed calendar compared to the

semester schedule Howell and Johnson

conclude that compressed courses can work

without compromising learning

effectiveness (1982)

A separate investigation into whether a

difference in learning acquisition existed for

students in a six-week and 16-week term as

well as to describe students’ perceptions of

these differing calendar lengths (Aguilar,

2004) The study included a non-random

sample of 387 students at a community

college in Southern California The subjects

were each taking one of the following

courses: geometry, sociology, criminology, biology, and geology The researcher administered a pre-test, post-test, and questionnaire to the students, and ultimately found no difference in learning acquisition existed (Aguilar, 2004)

Another study considered word-processing courses in a traditional semester and in a one-course-at-a-time format lasting 18 days

at a rural, western university in the United States (Scott, 2009) The students self-selected into either of the course sections Scott found that the students in the semester-long course out-performed students in a compressed course based on the post-test (2009) Cy-Fair College, which opened in

2003, offers English as a Second Language (ESL) classes in blocks taken back-to-back (Ashburn, 2006) The idea behind this schedule was that students would learn faster due to immersion and that students would support one another through the process

Western State College in Colorado operates

on a year-round calendar, with four 12-weekand eight-week terms replacing the previous 16-week schedule (Cash et al, 1993) It experiences more efficient classroom scheduling, and more classroom interaction, with the shorter terms The new calendar increased flexibility and improved faculty development, teaching, and learning innovation Students take fewer classes per term while earning semester-hour credit

Students preferred short terms in order to take faster-paced courses and graduate more quickly (Aguilar, 2004) The students expressed they felt a higher level of motivation to complete a course that met for fewer weeks However, disadvantages of the compressed six-week courses included stress and the tendency to fall behind if students miss class due to illness Still,

Aguilar maintains that “the length of the

semester has no significant effect on student

achievement” one way or the other (2004)

In a different study, short courses in

psychology resulted in higher pre- and

post-test scores than traditional courses (Daniel,

2000) Accelerated educational philosophy

courses produced higher scores on final

exams, and compressed courses in language

and literature have also shown positive

results (Daniel, 2000)

As with students in the Southern California

community college, students at the

University of Phoenix also prefer shorter

terms, where classes meet for five weeks

instead of a full semester (Bugay, 2000) In

this format, adult students complete degrees

in less than half the time of a day student

taking classes in a traditional semester

Phoenix’s format provides an accelerated

pace and modular curriculum that is

consistent across professors teaching the

same course (Bugay, 2000)

According to David Wesson’s theoretical

framework, “decentralized timetabling

process to limit the flexibility of course

schedules” (Hill, 2008) University course

schedules, or “timetabling,” when courses

are taught, including days, times, rooms, and

instructors, also who needs to enroll (Hill,

2008) The Hill article’s goal is to “fill the

gap in non-mathematical and –

computational approaches.” The primary

constraints are “scheduling courses based on

student preference.” Timetable constraints

exist dependent on one another (Hill, 2008)

The Threshold of Rigidity represents the

point where no courses can be added and no

schedules can be changed without disrupting

all the rest (Hill, 2008)

Hill conducted a study of the course

offerings at the University of Toronto

Mississauga (UTM) from fall 2001 to spring

2008 (2008) UTM experienced problems with an increase in enrollment without the same increase in instructional space as well

as a lack of centralization and lack of flexibility in timetabling Any change requires several people to get involved with the timetable Overall classroom space per student decreased Night classes have increased, and contact hours have decreased.The current timetable does not take into account student demand; centralization will incorporate student demand There is a distinct need to gain the faculty’s acceptanceand backing, as well as to heed their

concerns regarding the timetable (Hill, 2008)

Some colleges long ago started the fall semester in late September and the spring semester in February (Malesic, 2009) Semester means “six-month period” in its Latin roots and is the traditional format for college calendars even today (Malesic, 2009) Colleges and universities of great diversity have embarked on calendar changes in the past, typically moving to a traditional semester system Miami University of Ohio traded a quarter system for a semester schedule in 1976, Western Iowa Technical Community College moved from an 11-week schedule to a semester in

1994, and LaGrange College changed to a semester system in 1999 (Matzelle et al, 1995; Gulley and Floyd, 2002)

Many institutions have changed from a short-term calendar to a semester-long calendar This conversion presents disadvantages and advantages, for example

in the case of Reading Area Community College in Pennsylvania (Matzelle et al, 1995) A survey was given to the staff and students concerning the campus changing to

a semester schedule In terms of academic issues, the semester looks beneficial, and concerning financial matters, conversion to

the new calendar is a feasible option

Reading looks at 11 other institutions that

had made a calendar change or were

considering the transition Western Iowa

Technical Community College changes from

an 11-week schedule to a semester system in

1994, which resulted in a decline in

part-time students

Ten universities in Florida and Iowa

changed from a quarter to a semester model

The general finding was a decline in junior

and senior credit load Pennsylvania State

University (Penn State) changed from term

to semester, because terms ended in June,

which prevented graduates from an early,

and thus competitive, start in the job market

(Matzelle et al, 1995) This is also true for

students looking for summer-only jobs, not

necessarily post-graduation careers only

(Malesic) Also, the term calendar

prevented students from a smooth transfer to

Penn State, in terms of transfer credit hours

(Matzelle et al, 1995)

The Virginia Community College System

changed from quarters to semesters in 1988,

and as with Western Iowa, experienced a

decrease in part-time students Classes

started in August instead of September The

number of full-time enrolled students rose at

the same rate as before the conversion

(Matzelle et al, 1995) In Florida and Iowa,

“course completion rate decreases under a

new semester system.” The College of the

Redwoods decided to stay on quarters due to

student preference and faculty support, as

well as the flexibility of the schedule and

how it allows for student seasonal

employment Miami University of Ohio

changed to a quarter to a semester schedule

in 1976 to allow for extensive student

projects (Matzelle et al, 1995)

Arapahoe Community College changed

from a quarter to a semester calendar in

1984 While enrollment initially dropped, it

later increased “On the quarter system, one hardly got students up and running before it’s time to stop” (Matzelle et al, 1995) Lansing Community College also experiences a decline in enrollment after transitioning from a term to semester system, and there is no indication its numbers returned to normal Northeastern University in Boston changed from a 10-week term to a semester, because the term length was not long enough for students to complete papers and projects The terms’ starts and stops created a calendar disruptionfor Northeastern, thus serving as another reason to move to a semester (Matzelle et al,1995)

A semester calendar has its advantages; including the ability of students to enter the job market a month earlier in the summer than some term schedules permit (Matzelle

et al, 1995) It also provides more planning time for faculty and processing time (such aswith registration) for staff Incoming transfer students favored the semester schedule, as did the current day students, in Matzelle’s example; however, evening students preferred the term calendar

Slightly more than half of the day students indicated, though, that a term schedule allowed them to complete more courses during the year Conversion (from term to semester) costs included computer program changes, but the overall cost was deemed

“economically feasible” (Matzelle et al, 1995)

Porterville College in California conducted astudent and faculty survey regarding

changing from an 18-week semester to one lasting 16 weeks (Carley, 2002) Between 4,000 and 5,000 students attend Porterville, which employs 87 full-time faculty and over

100 adjuncts The student survey explored obstacles to class attendance, days and time

of classes, summer and winter sessions, and

preferences Over half of the students

surveyed preferred the 16-week semester to

one running 18 weeks Faculty (full-time

and adjunct) also completed a survey about

willingness to teach classes in the summer,

winter, and on Fridays Their responses

showed that 50% were willing to teach all,

but only 30% were willing to teach during

the second summer session, which runs

through late July (Carley, 2002)

Los Rios Community College District

representatives spoke to colleges that had

changed from 18-week semesters to 15- or

16-week “compressed” calendars (Beachler,

2003) More than a third of faculty whom

were asked thought students experienced

greater success on the compressed calendar

In addition, 40% of faculty thought the

compressed calendar “adversely affects

student anxiety” (Beachler, 2003) More

than 25% recognized the negative impact on

time for extracurricular activities, however,

and worried about the effect a shortened

schedule might have on struggling students

In addition, compressed courses can be

labor-intensive for faculty (Daniel, 2000)

Despite the abundance of institutions

operating on semesters, compressed or

accelerated schedules are a growing trend in

higher education, coordinating with evening

classes, minimesters, and three-year degrees

(Gallo and Odu, 2009; Carlson and Lipka,

2009) The early form of these programs

arose in the 1970s along with weekend

colleges for students to save time and money

(Boyd, 2007; Daniel, 2000) By the 1990s,

Western State College in Colorado operated

on a year-round calendar with alternating

three-month and two-month long courses

(Cash, 1993) Fast-paced schedules may

satisfy student preference, but concern about

satisfying learning outcomes still lingers

(Gallo and Odu, 2009; Daniel, 2000)

Following this line of students’ desire to complete more courses in less time, an even more recent theme than short terms is the three-year degree (Carlson and Lipka, 2009) At Southern New Hampshire University, students can effectively save a year of tuition payments and graduate in three years without needing to take summer, night, or weekend courses Manchester College, however, does use two summers of web courses called “Fast Forward” to speed its students along Southern has a 90% retention rate, it should be noted, although three-year degrees have critics Some educators debate whether this shorter stint short-changes students out of the full collegeexperience (Carlson and Lipka, 2009) Despite this kind of criticism, “accelerated learning programs are one of the fasting growing transformations in higher education” (Boyd, 2007)

Beachler found the benefits of the compressed calendar include increased student persistence, quality of education, class participation, and course availability (2003) The compressed calendar positivelyimpacted annual enrollment, and the time available for faculty’s office hours for students did not change, whether more or less hours, for 66% of the faculty

respondents A third of the faculty indicatedthe length of time for course preparation wasnot affected by the compressed calendar Colleges needed somewhere between one to two years to work out unevenness in a new calendar format To prevent a possible decline in student activities on the compressed calendar, colleges recommend building activities into a common lunch hourwhen students are on campus but not in class(Beachler, 2003)

Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing programs started in 1971, and by 2007, 197 such programs existed (Beal, 2007)

Students in these programs, which typically

run for 12 to 18 months, are older, in

general, than traditional students Some

faculty prefer teaching students in the

accelerated program to those in the

traditional program Duke University

School of Nursing has received funding to

conduct research on questions related to

accelerated nursing programs (research not

yet available) (Beal, 2007)

Undergraduate programs are not the only

ones on the fast track; medical schools also

provide the opportunity to accelerate in joint

Bachelor of Science/Doctor of Medicine

programs (Borges, 2007) One author

hypothesizes that students in traditional

four-year M.D programs come out ahead of

those in accelerated ones in terms of career

decisions The study of 441 medical

students found that those in non-accelerated

nursing programs demonstrated a greater

grasp on their career goals than those in the

joint program, but this may be due to

preexisting personal characteristics and not

the actual course schedule itself (Borges,

2007)

George Washington University in

Washington, D.C is exploring the

implementation of a year-round college

calendar, to increase enrollment (Dervarics,

2004) Dartmouth College in Hanover, New

Hampshire started a year-round calendar in

1972 with “fourquarters,” which includes 12

quarters in four years of undergraduate

education This schedule provides time for

study abroad and internships Dartmouth

provides institutional aid when the Pell

Grant is not available in the summer

(Dervarics, 2004)

The United Negro College Fund (UNCF)

recommends a year-round calendar with

sections called “threemesters” instead of

semesters (Dervarics, 2004) For example,

Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia operates on trimesters, with two 12-week terms and one six-week term (Washington and Lee University) The 1,777 students may use the six-week term for study abroad or for more focused courses(Washington and Lee) The UNCF is callingfor a change in Pell Grant eligibility so that low-income students may attend and receiveaid during the summer The fall and spring academic calendar came about “when most Americans worked in agriculture,” but a year-round schedule would allow students inremedial courses to enroll in fewer classes at

a time and meet the prerequisites for college-level courses without falling behind (Dervarics, 2004)

Focus Group Summary

The staff focus group participants stressed the costs of Initiative 4.1, parallel courses, would include redesigning and printing admissions marketing materials that present the new course format In addition, staff indicated that education courses would not function as well as a seven-week schedule with another course Similarly, faculty expressed that the sciences would not work

as well in a parallel fashion but thought business courses may be better suited to this schedule than the Block Faculty also saw this initiative as a movement away from the Block However, they were open to trying parallel courses if the college introduced the initiative in a voluntary way Faculty said there may be turnover if the administration required all professors to transfer every course to a parallel format Furthermore, faculty and staff did not feel parallel coursesmet the current needs of athletes,

commuters, and working students

Initiative 4.2: Change current class scheduling to minimize challenge of maintaining academic engagement for three

hours and to increase opportunities for

student and faculty outside-of-class

interaction.

Primary Question 1: “What are the

costs and benefits of the proposed strategic

plan initiatives?”

Faculty and staff focus groups also

responded to questions regarding the

initiative to change the time of day

classes meet from three hours in either

the morning or afternoon to one and one

half hours in both morning and

afternoon Questions posed to the staff

are as follows:

 In what ways, if at all, do you

think the initiative to “move

current class scheduling…to

meeting 1 ½ hours in the

morning and 1 ½ hours in the

afternoon for 18 days” would

affect how you feel about your

job at Tusculum?

 How, if at all, would this

initiative cost you financially?

The questions were worded differently for

faculty, as follows:

 In what ways, if at all, do you

think the initiative to “move

current class scheduling…to

meeting 1 ½ hours in the

morning and 1 ½ hours in the

afternoon for 18 days” would

affect how you feel about your

position at Tusculum?

 If Tusculum enacted the initiative

to “move current class

scheduling…to meeting 1 ½

hours in the morning and 1 ½

hours in the afternoon for 18

days,” how would that change

your course preparation?

Classroom instruction?

 If Tusculum enacted the initiative

to “move current class scheduling…to meeting 1 1/2 hours in the morning and 1 ½ hours in the afternoon for 18 days,” would you consider leaving your academic appointment at Tusculum? Wouldyou leave?

 How, if at all, would this initiative cost you financially? Costs

Overall, the faculty were more open to this idea than staff, although, only on a voluntaryimplementation One staff person who was also a former student said this measure would “cause havoc,” as others chimed in with concerns about parking, classroom space, and logistics Echoing a downside to the aforementioned initiative, staff expressedconcern regarding the cost for students who would have to forego afternoon jobs They also saw additional costs for athletes, who currently use the half of they day they are not in class to train, as well as commuters, who would have to remain parked on campus all day Another worry involved a hindrance to afternoon studying, since students would be in class both morning andafternoon Staff cited the need to produce all new recruiting materials for a new campaign, since classes would no longer meet in one three-hour period per day In addition, staff said that scheduling practicumexperiences and laboratory components would become a problem under this initiative, and the faculty echoed this concern

The faculty also cited potential problems with this initiative, because they said it would “destroy continuity” in the Block In addition, they did not want to have to take a break after an hour and a half if they were in

the middle of a concept in class Two

faculty members indicated they would

probably leave their positions at Tusculum if

this initiative were enacted, citing it as the

“final straw.” Another faculty member in

the same focus group said this schedule

change would force him into retirement On

a larger scale, the campus would need

cultural change to create more interaction

between faculty and students, and faculty

shared uncertainty that this move could

produce such

Benefits

On the other hand, one staff person insisted

that academic time begins and 8:30 a.m and

lasts until 3:30 p.m., so this initiative should

not cause problems or result in conflict for

faculty The faculty indicated that if split

courses were optional, instead of enforced

for all faculty and every course, then faculty

felt more open to trying the schedule The

staff and faculty certainly saw more costs of,

than benefits from, this initiative

Primary Question 2: “Do the

strategic initiatives meet the needs of

our current students?”

Staff and faculty focus groups responded to

the following questions regarding whether

split courses met current students’ needs:

 Which, if any, of these initiatives

meets the needs of Tusculum’s

current students? (Two courses in

seven weeks, One course split

between morning and afternoon

in the Block, Testing Center.)

Which one(s) and how?

 Which ones, if any, do not meet

the needs of Tusculum’s current

students? (Two courses in seven

weeks, One course split between

morning and afternoon in the Block, Testing Center.) Why not?

The staff believed the initiative to split one class between morning and afternoon for one Block does not meet the needs of Tusculum’s current students, because it poses challenges for commuters, athletes, and working students While the faculty was opposed to a mandatory switch to this course schedule, they were open to offering classes in this manner on a voluntary basis, where faculty members would choose to participate In a rather contradictory fashion, while three faculty suggested they would leave Tusculum due to this initiative, this is the only measure to enhance the Block that the faculty generally could acceptimplementing

Literature on Initiative 4.2: Course schedules

A further investigation of split courses was conducted by researching existing literature Depending on the institution, courses can be scheduled at almost any time of day,

including evenings and Saturdays

Typically, classes meet Monday, Wednesday,and Friday for 50 minutes, while others maymeet Tuesday and Thursday for 75 minutes (Gallo and Odu, 2009) However some institutions offer Saturday courses that meet for a longer time but only once per week, other classes meet only one evening per week, and still others meet only Monday andWednesday during the day Course

scheduling involves “how often and for howlong a course is taken” (Gallo and Odu, 2009)

Gallo and Odu considered 116 Florida community colleges students in three-, two-,and one-day per week courses to flesh out the spacing effect theory (2009) This theory concerns “how variations in the

frequency and timing of instruction affect

student learning” (2009) They found that

although students preferred compressed or

intensive schedules, that course format is not

best for learning math Colleges are moving

to compressed formats due to student

demand, funding, and competition For

example, Florida’s community colleges offer

algebra in a variety of schedules from one

evening per week to Tuesday and Thursday

during the day, from traditional semester to

eight weeks (Gallo and Odu, 2009)

Cognitive learning theory suggests that

students retain material through practice

over time (Gallo and Odu, 2009) Shorter

sessions that are spread out with time

between enhance long-term memory and

retrieval Knowledge retention is reportedly

not as successful with accelerated classes

(Daniel, 2000) Gallo’s algebra study

showed that students in algebra one day per

week (Saturday) scored lower on the final

exam than those in class two or three days

per week However, the instructor’s gender

and years teaching significantly affected

achievement, so more variables were

involved than just course schedule (Gallo

and Odu, 2009)

At Western College in Colorado, classes do

not meet before 2:00 p.m on Wednesdays,

when the college provides activities to

students for “Western Wednesdays.” In the

12-week terms, classes meet in 50-minute

modules Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and

Friday or in 100-minute segments Monday

and Thursday or Tuesday and Friday In the

eight-week format, classes meet for 75

minutes Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and

Friday or for 150 minutes on Monday and

Thursday or Tuesday and Friday (Cash et al,

1993)

Focus Groups Summary

The staff’s main concerns regarding the splitcourses initiative included potential costs forathletes, commuters, and working students who would need to be in class both morning and afternoon as well as a concern over the logistics of parking and space to

accommodate students remaining on campusmorning and afternoon Faculty saw the costs of this initiative as destroying the continuity of the class meeting by breaking after an hour and a half as well as possible faculty departure if the administration instituted split courses as mandatory for all However, faculty said this initiative would meet current students’ needs if applied in a voluntary fashion affecting only those professors who wished to convert their courses to meeting both morning and afternoon

Initiative 4.4: Reduce the pedagogical limitations of the block by capturing as much instructional time as possible in each class session by removing assessment and testing from class sessions.

The idea for a testing center came from a male faculty member at Tusculum, according to information provided by the study’s contact person after a faculty member of the focus groups mentioned him

by name during the session The Tusculum College Strategic Plan 2009-2014 indicates the driver behind opening a centralized assessment facility lies in providing professors with additional classroom time that they otherwise would spend

administering exams Students would take exams on their own time, outside of regular class hours, at the center This initiative’s timeline begins with an investigation into space in summer 2010, followed by a part-time staff person to operate the center in fall

2010 In the spring, the strategic planning committee would pilot the testing center for

at least five courses The course usage of

the center would be evaluated in summer

2011 and a decision reached about adding

additional (or all) courses to the testing

center or discontinuing its use (Strategic

Plan)

Primary Question 1: “What are the

costs and benefits of the proposed strategic

plan initiatives?”

The following questions regarding the costs

and benefits of the proposed testing center

were asked of the staff:

 In what ways, if at all, do you

think the initiative to remove

assessment from class sessions

and develop a Testing Center

would affect how you feel about

your job at Tusculum?

 How, if at all, would this

initiative cost you financially?

For the faculty focus groups, the following

questions were posed:

 In what ways, if at all, do you

think the initiative to remove

assessment from class sessions

and develop a Testing Center

would affect how you feel about

your position at Tusculum?

 If Tusculum enacted the initiative

to remove assessment from class

sessions and develop a Testing

Center how would that change

your course preparation?

Classroom instruction?

 If Tusculum enacted the initiative

to remove assessment from class

sessions and develop a Testing

Center would you consider

leaving your academic

appointment at Tusculum? Would

you leave?

 How, if at all, would this initiative cost you financially?Costs

The monetary costs of piloting and implementing the testing center would include $13,000 annually for a part-time facility coordinator, which suggests the center will not remain open on a full-time basis In addition, if the campus needs to add a computer lab, this initiative would costanother one-time charge of $16,000 In addition, Tusculum would spend $15,000 to

$30,000 on faculty development over the course of three summers (Strategic Plan) Thus, the testing center could cost $59,000 plus an additional $13,000 per year to compensate the part-time staff person Faculty and staff answered questions regarding the testing center initiative A clear divide existed between the faculty and staff in terms of their sentiments for this method of Block enhancement The faculty generally disagreed with testing center initiative They felt such a measure would

be a “disservice to students,” because by removing assessment from the classroom, a piece of learning would also disappear Instead, a few discussed adding a testing day

as the nineteenth day of each Block, thus extending the Block by one day Another testing idea they talked about was adding a finals week at the end of the semester duringwhich students would take final exams from all their Block courses that semester The faculty talked through that proposal in terms

of how it would work but ultimately did not all support it They cited concerns over retention, reasoning that the incorporation of

a finals week may weaken student satisfaction and finally cause students to withdraw or transfer

One positive of a finals week, though, the faculty thought would be course material

retention One female faculty member

added that with the current testing structure

in the Block, students “cram it and forget it,”

whereas, a finals week would encourage

retaining course material for a longer period

of time than 18 days Following that line of

thinking, a female staff person who

participated in one of the faculty groups

called the current Block a “binge and purge”

model, saying, “That’s what they call it.”

The aforementioned faculty member overtly

shot her a disapproving look, and the staff

person proceeded to downplay and even

retract her statement

Benefits

The staff participants, as a whole, expressed

that a testing center would be excellent

One person added she would not need to

proctor exams anymore if Tusculum

operated a testing center However, the staff

were concerned about the cost for electronic

resources for computer-based assessment as

well as to develop and build the center One

staff person commented that the Tennessee

Board of Regents (TBR) institutions run

testing centers, but unbeknownst to this

participant and as will be discussed later,

such facilities possess little in common with

Tusculum’s concept of a testing center

Comparing these benefits to the above

description of costs, the costs outweigh the

benefits

Primary Question 2:“Do the

strategic initiatives meet the needs of

our current students?”

Faculty and staff responded to the following

questions regarding whether this initiative

meets the needs of Tusculum’s current

students:

 Which, if any, of these initiatives

meets the needs of Tusculum’s

current students? (Two courses inseven weeks, One course split between morning and afternoon

in the Block, Testing Center.) Which one(s) and how?

 Which ones, if any, do not meet the needs of Tusculum’s current students? (Two courses in seven weeks, One course split between morning and afternoon in the Block, Testing Center.) Why not?The faculty wanted the testing center

completely removed from the list of initiatives for Block enhancement, but the staff wanted to keep only the testing center

as a possibility Whereas the staff participants agreed that a testing center would meet Tusculum’s current students’ needs, the faculty were equally against this initiative The faculty indicated they want to

be present when their students are taking exams to answer questions They said learning continues during assessment, so by removing tests from class, students would miss an important learning opportunity

Literature on Initiative 4.4: Testing centers

To further understand the testing centers initiative, a study of existing literature on testing and center-type concepts was conducted First, it is important to establish

a foundation of knowledge regarding assessment Summative assessment identifies the resulting learning after students complete a course and measures what the student achieved as a result of the course (Melton, 1996; Yorke, 2003) With formative, professors provide feedback to their students along the way concerning theirlearning (Melton, 1996) The purpose of formative assessment involves contributing

to learning by providing information to the students about their performance (Yorke, 2003) Assessment may be formal

(conducted by academic staff) or informal

(not included in the curriculum design)

(Yorke, 2003) Tests are given to reveal to

students their strengths, reveal the students’

progress to the professor, motivate and

evaluate students, and determine grades

(Grieve, 1990) Assessment may include

essay, multiple choice questions, recall (such

as completion and written response), and

true or false questions (Grieve, 1990)

Assessment should begin with the

professors’ learning objectives for the

students in a particular course, and these

objectives should be clearly stated (Palombo

and Banta, 1999) Objectives describe

behaviors students should be able to exhibit,

and learning goals involve understanding

concepts Faculty members may wish to

develop matrices outlining the learning

objectives, activities (in class and assigned),

and modes of measuring that students

reached those objectives Objectives may be

cognitive, affective, or skills-related

Cognitive objectives involve thinking;

affective refers to attitude and values, and

skills concerns performance and practice

The ultimate learning objective is critical

thinking, which students should demonstrate

via assessment (Palombo and Banta, 1999)

The concept of a testing center to the extent

that Tusculum envisions suggests that page

“one teacher cannot perform well every task

that teaching requires” thus other

professionals handle the assessment side of

education (Speck, 2000) These assessors,

who design evaluations and manage the

process, may require special training not

innate in faculty Grading can become a

burden for professors who are otherwise

occupied with teaching and research

Professors remain the content specialists for

courses in their fields In addition, grading

of such assessments bears subjectivity, often

varying by faculty member (Speck, 2000)

While on a negative side, no common definition of grading exists, but more positively speaking, testing is flexible and can adjust to various contexts as needed Through the testing and grading process, it

is important to consider that knowledge generation, transmission, and application connect with one another Specifically, two types of tests exist: criterion-referenced and norm-referenced Criterion refers to exams that are locally developed; whereas, norm texts are developed by the Education TestingServices and expected to form a bell curve (Speck, 2000)

Not much literature, or real-life examples, exists on central testing centers for all of students’ assessments on college campuses The most closely related concept involves proctored exams for students taking tests fordistance learning courses The National College Testing Association provides referrals for students in need of exam proctors (Young, 2001) The Association works with 187 colleges across 42 states Students may pay $10-25 to for the proctor referral (Young, 2001) As someone alluded

to in the staff focus group, TBR institutions operate testing centers for students taking web-based courses through the Regents Online Degree Program (RODP) The TBR offers 28 testing center sites throughout the state, including universities, community colleges, and technical schools (Regents Online Degree Program)

In Texas, 22 colleges and five public libraries have partnered in an effort to increase testing convenience for students in distance learning courses (Young, 2001) Previously, these students came to campus

to take proctored exams, but the collaboration of the libraries and colleges has created testing centers Students from a variety of colleges can arrive at a testing

center and take his or her exam, without

needing to drive far from home These

centers are part of the Texas

Computer-Based Testing Collaboration, coordinated by

the Associate Director of the University of

North Texas’ Center for Distributed

Learning Students can take proctored exams

without necessarily going to the campus of

the institution with which they are studying

Even before the testing centers, the Virtual

College of Texas, composed of community

colleges, offered a test-proctoring service

with pen and paper tests that the proctors

mailed to the students’ professors (Young,

2001)

The Associate Dean of the Urban Resource

Center at Florida Community College at

Jacksonville (FCCJ) has demonstrated that

proctored testing can be successful for

students in distance learning courses

(Lorenzetti, 2006) The proctors that the

National College Testing Association’s

Consortium of Testing Centers (CCTC) uses

are employees of their home college or

university For proctored exams, students

must bring their photo IDs and provide a

signature In addition, proctors receive a

password from the testing center to

administer the exam via Blackboard

(Content Management System) in an off-site

location (Lorenzetti, 2006)

A study by researchers from Ferris State

University and Pennsylvania College of

Technology involving 120 college students

in online courses compared proctored and

un-proctored exams (Lorenzetti, 2006)

They looked at a pre-test, posttest, and two

intervening quizzes Traditional in-class

tests provide the benefit of face-to-face

contact, the opportunity for clarification on

exam instructions, supervision, and

feedback, and the results showed that

proctored exams encourage students to

“undertake their course study more

effectively” (Lorenzetti, 2006) The researchers determined that online courses with proctored testing are as effective as text-based courses (Lorenzetti, 2006) The Online Testing Coordinator for Pace University and the National Coalition for Telecommunications Education and Learning Vocational Program at Pace University in New York first piloted proctors

in spring 1999 and spring 2000 for exams for Blackboard courses (Creating a proctoring) Pace built a base of proctors simply by placing the responsibility on its students who are not near the university’s physical proctoring area Students may ask nearly anyone to serve as their proctor, providing that person is of no relation to the student taking the exam Examples of proctors include managers and supervisors

at work Scheduling can be a problem for student and proctors to arrange a test time, but the flexibility in proctors may help (Creating a proctoring)

In addition to distance learning, students with disabilities may use testing centers as special accommodations Cox, Herner, and Demczyk conducted a statewide assessment

of elementary, middle, and high school students with disabilities and found that the addition of a proctor or scribe is correlated with higher participation rates (2006) No previous studies have shown how testing accommodations relate to student outcomes comparing state by state However, researchhas shown a connection between a proctor being present and an increased assessment score (Cox et al, 2006) The Americans withDisabilities Act of 1990 helps explain classifying who has disabilities and what methods of accommodations should be made for such individuals (Pitiniak and Royer, 2001) The Code of Fair Testing in Education from 1988 educates the public on the rights of test-takers and suggests

accommodation methods One of the

options since 1999 includes modifying the

physical setting in which students with

disabilities take their exams or relocating

students to a new space (Pitiniak and Royer,

2001)

Apart from distance learning and students

with disabilities, a few examples of

modifying assessment in higher education

are presented For example, a three-week

summer science program for students from

Louisiana State University, Louisiana

Technical University, and the University of

Louisiana explores methods of assessment

in a consolidated schedule (Baustian, 2008)

The instructors use pre- and post-course

“image-based analysis,” which involves

working with Microsoft Office clipart The

students also take weekly pass/fail quizzes

as well as lab and practical exams

Instructors keep a working knowledge of

assessment methods to use for creative

testing They adapt the tests to the short

curriculum to seek productive results

(Baustian, 2008) Accelerated schedules

may necessitate that instructional

approaches are modified due to time

constraints (Daniel, 2000) Daniel indicates

time-intensive courses may make greater use

of experiential learning (2000)

The University of Florida Business College

explored assessments to measure learning

(Peach et al, 2007) In part to maintain

business accreditation, faculty worked to

formulate output measures for student

learning The approach was framed to

assure faculty the changes were about

curriculum not poor teaching The revisions

were based on five 2003 accrediting

standards, included critical thinking,

communications, ethics, project

management, and domain knowledge The

Business College conducted a conduct to

assess its students’ critical thinking In

2005, only 28% scored as “exemplary” in terms of learning outcomes; whereas, in

2006, that percentage rose An unexpected plus resulted from the learning assessments

in that faculty who were teaching different sections of the same course began to talk and meet together (Peach et al, 2007)

Focus Groups Summary

The staff participants said the testing center initiative met current students’ needs and should be implemented next but

misunderstood the purpose of the TBR institutions’ testing centers However, faculty adamantly opposed the testing centerfor reasons of breakdown in control of assessment, loss of a learning opportunity, and creating an inconvenience for students

to schedule exams on their own time

Other Project Questions

Primary Question 3: “Are there other initiatives that should be considered as part

of the ‘block plan enhancement’ goal?”

In an effort to answer the project question,

“Are there other initiatives that should be considered as part of the ‘block plan enhancement’ goal?” Faculty and staff focus groups responded to a question regarding whether other initiatives should compose the strategic plan While these ideas should certainly be respected and considered, it is important to remember the context in which they were brought to light After answering several questions about the proposed initiatives, focus groups members may have surmised the strategic plan suggested that the Block was somehow flawed and in need of some type of initiative

to repair it In this way, respondents did not enter into this question with a blank slate

The predicament with asking faculty and

staff open-ended questions about what other

initiatives they think Tusculum should adopt

lies in the fact that the respondents may have

personal agendas or pet projects that may

have nothing to do with the Block When a

collection of solutions exists for which

people are simply looking for problems, this

is called garbage can decision-making

Staff members hoped to “keep the students’

best interest” in mind and choose an

initiative that will enhance their experience

Another discussion concerning academic

time as 8:30 a.m to 3:30 p.m ensued as

staff talked through how to engage students

in club and cultural activities They decided

that student organization meetings or special

programs, such as lecture series, could take

place between morning and afternoon

meetings if the initiative to hold classes one

and a half hours in the morning and

afternoon was enacted However, the group

remained opposed to that time schedule,

fearing an increase in attrition from

commuters and students with jobs

The staff also proposed the idea of

strengthening the summer academic

program to encourage students to take

summer courses at Tusculum (as opposed to

a nearby community college, Walter State)

One male staff member insisted that

building set empty during the summer due to

weak enrollment Another male staff person

asked a poignant question, “How much do

we manipulate the student or manipulate the

mold (i.e the Block)?”

The faculty yearned for an initiative that

would produce all of the following:

flexibility, financial resources, and

academically prepared students In order to

attain at least the third objective, they would

like to institute an academic boot camp, such

as in the summer, to help students increase

their abilities, particularly in reading and writing, one faculty member said A second initiative idea coming from the faculty was

to meet for class four hours per day for four days per week, such as 8:00 a.m to 12:00 p.m and have Wednesdays off This would

“give students a break” to meet for team projects or for student activities It would also allow faculty to hold meeting, engage inresearch, and “interact in a community” of fellow professors They thought the current Block plan does not accommodate research agendas

Sub-question 1: “What strategic initiatives among the three remaining delineated in the Strategic Plan would be the best one to pilot and implement next (following the Living- Learning Communities)?”

Faculty and staff disagreed as to which initiative should follow the 2008 piloting of living-learning communities Faculty in the focus groups expressed that Tusculum should not implement any of the three remaining initiatives However, if they had

to choose one, it would be 4.2, which splits courses between morning and afternoon Staff respondents chose the testing center as the next way step to improve the Block

Sub-question 2: “How have Colorado College and Cornell College changed their version of the Block, if at all, in order to manage student expectations and

produce better learning outcomes?”

As with the contextual analysis, to gather information in response to this research question about Colorado College and Cornell College, the data collection methodsincluded website research, phone interviews with a faculty member from both Colorado and Cornell, respectively, as well as articles and documents about Colorado The phone interviews were scheduled with each of the

two interviewees via email and each

conducted in one phone conversation with

each faculty member As aforementioned,

the questions formulated prior, and

employed as a basis, for the calls are located

in Appendix A Both faculty members

provided information freely without always

needing an articulated question for direction

Faculty members were informed via email

as well as on the phone call that the

researcher was conducting a project on

Tusculum’s Block as a graduate student at

Vanderbilt University

Colorado College

Early in the shortened term schedule at

Colorado College, students normally took

two courses per block (Colorado faculty,

personal communication, September 22,

2009) Now, two different faculty members

teach separate two-block-long courses, as an

interdisciplinary approach has proven

unpopular among Colorado’s faculty One

example of parallel, or concurrent two-block

courses at Colorado is a course on the

History of China and a Chinese Culture and

Language course, but running alternate days

(instead of half morning and half afternoon

as Tusculum is considering) followed up by

trip to china (Colorado faculty) Colorado

had proposed running blocks five and six as

parallel course blocks and even offered to

compensate faculty to develop parallel

courses New and overextended faculty

have not responded well to such measures,

however (Colorado faculty)

At Colorado, the early block plan included

half-courses, which met partially in the early

morning and completed in the late morning

(Brooks, 1969) Professors could teach two

courses per block, or two sections of the

same course Late afternoon and early

evening sections included dance, choir

Students could take courses, such as dance

and music, along with principle (main) course Faculty would teach 30 out of 33 weeks, and students would attend class a total of 120 weeks to graduate (30 weeks peryear) (Brooks, 1969)

Today, faculty decide what time their courses will begin and end, but the general rule is that all classes, except the sciences, end by 3:00 p.m (Colorado College, 2009; Colorado faculty, personal communication, September 22, 2009) At least some math courses meet partly in the morning, and thenthe students are dismissed to work on an assignment and return to finish class in the afternoon However, the average class meets 9:00 a.m to 12:00 p.m (Colorado faculty)

Colorado also has half-block courses, which meet for 10 days, such as between the last block of the fall and the first block of the spring (Colorado College) In addition, students may take evening or Saturday classes at Colorado, with evening classes beginning no earlier than 5:00 (Colorado faculty, personal communication, September

22, 2009) This gives student organizations time to meet between 3:00 and 5:00 p.m (Colorado faculty)

None of the other institutions that operate on

a Block facilitate a testing center of the nature that Tusculum is considering At Colorado College, no central testing facility exists either Students take exams in the classroom at 9:00 a.m., and their professor give a lecture following the test and until 3:00 p.m (Colorado faculty, personal communication, September 22, 2009) Faculty members never, or at least are not supposed to, lecture before an exam (Colorado faculty)

Cornell College

Today, the One Course at a Time (OCAAT)

format holds mostly true to its name It has

at least minimally changed, though, in the

last 21 years, for example, with the

introduction of parallel courses, although

they compose less than 1% of the courses at

Cornell (Cornell faculty, personal

communication, September 11, 2009) Two

courses run over a two-block period,

wherein one could meet in the morning and

another in the afternoon Individual faculty

members decide which courses to pair

together and present the proposal to the

faculty curriculum committee for approval

Once the entire faculty has approved the

parallel courses, the faculty member who

proposed the set then teaches both courses

(Cornell faculty) The courses are of related

subjects; for example, students do not take

economics in the morning and English in the

afternoon Instead, students may take two

business courses for a seven-week term at

Cornell However, almost all of Cornell’s

courses run one per block

Similar to parallel courses, students can take

link courses in an interdisciplinary approach

to course scheduling but in separate blocks

(Cornell faculty, personal communication,

September 11, 2009) Cornell offers link

courses for first-year sociology and geology

courses, for example Students may take

sociology in the first block and geology in

the third, but both courses will focus on one

theme (e.g consumption) As with the

parallel course option, few courses are

offered as links (Cornell faculty)

Cornell experimented with offering

interdisciplinary link courses also in a

parallel format, such as biology and

psychology courses that deal with the

common theme of cognition (Cornell

faculty, personal communication, September

11, 2009) Each course would contain a

different group of students (e.g students in

biology would not also attend psychology), but the students would “link,” or meet as a combined class at certain points throughout one block In that way, linked parallel courses differ from regular parallel in that they would not last for seven weeks

Cornell plans to apply this approach to its environmental studies program in the near future (Cornell faculty)

As with Colorado and Tusculum, each course (other than parallel courses) at Cornell meets for three and one half weeks, with a four-day break between However, whereas Tusculum’s courses meet for three hours in the morning or afternoon, and Colorado’s courses meet whenever the faculty would like during the day, whether once or twice (Cornell faculty personal communication, September 11, 2009) Cornell’s professors generally teach half of each class 9:00 to 11:00 a.m and the other half in the afternoons, 1:00 to 3:00 p.m (Cornell College) Each course totals four credits, as is common with block programs Cornell requires its faculty to meet at least

10 hours per week for class, but if they adhere to the aforementioned schedule, they meet closer to 20 hours per week (Cornell faculty)

At Cornell College, students with special needs may complete their exams in a low-distraction testing environment, but these areaccommodations for students with

disabilities and not utilized by every student taking an exam (Cornell faculty, personal communication, September 11, 2009) For most students at Cornell, tests take place in the classroom during normal class hours

In terms of testing, some classes at Cornell, students take final exams on the last Friday

of each course instead of the eighteenth day the class meets (Cornell faculty, personal communication, September 11, 2009)