New Class Meeting Patterns

The Academic Senate unanimously approved the new class meeting pattern proposal on February 6, 2014. The new grid will be implemented for the 2015-16 academic year, giving all of us a full year to model class offerings and optimize the new system.

• See the Stanford Report, February 7, 2014, article the Academic Senate's decsion on class meeting patterns.
• Download a printable new class meeting pattern grid.
• See also this comprehensive meeting patterns summary.

The new patterns were developed in response to recommendation of the SUES report and to a request by the deans responsible for undergraduate education (H&S, Engineering & Earth Systems) and the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education. The challenge was to develop a course of action that would mitigate enrollment conflicts that students noted during the SUES process.

To ameliorate this condition, three actions were recommended and adopted:

• simplify the meeting schedule matrix
• use the class scheduling process to minimize conflicts and overlaps for students
• encourage departments to coordinate their scheduling and distribution of courses

These recommendations were passed unanimously by the Academic Senate after unanimous votes in C-GS and C-USP.

Adopting these recommendations is a big change that affects everyone. While we are sensitive to how busy you and your colleagues are, and potential disruption and inconvenience this change may cause in its roll-out phase, we ask that you foreground reducing course conflicts, empowering students to take the courses they want and need, and teaching as one of our core values.