BY GENEVA DENNEY // Academic schedule changes, effective fall 2014, have been
the talk of the Hood College community for weeks now.

Many rumors are flying about what is and isn’t changing next year and these changes have caused
major uproar with students and staff. Some are embracing the changes, and others are opposed to them.

Next year, the time slots for classes will be extended with the earliest class starting at 8 a.m. This was done to accommodate more classes throughout the day and to eliminate overlapping schedule conflicts, Katherine Conway-Turner the provost and vice president of academic affairs said.

She mentioned moving common hour from 12-2 p.m. on Tuesday and Thursday, to having it on Wednesdays from 2-5 p.m. This was done to allow more classes during the day, Conway-Turner said.

Hood is also trying to hold fewer undergraduate classes at night. By doing so, the college will allow fewer overlaps of graduate and undergraduate classes.

Conway-Turner proposed and took action to implement the changes. “These changes are all about the students. There will be less conflicts and it’s allowing students to have easier schedules so they can get in and completed in four years.”

There were three public forums held over the past winter to address the issues with students.
However, not many attended. Some of the major topics of interest included sports conflicts and dining hall conflicts.

“We want to character build and educate, as well as account for sports and academic breaks,” Conway-Turner said. “I’m eager for our students to really understand what the changes are and how it will help them in the long run. We want students to move through the program successfully without glitches—the problems they think will occur are unlikely.”

Hood Student Power is an organization that pulls together the voice of the student body and has been the face of opposing the current schedule changes.  Grant Gallagher, 18, a freshman, has actively been a part of Hood Power since entering the school.

“Hood Power is more of a movement than an organization and it grew out of a lot of dedicated people’s ideas,” Gallagher said. “We’re all here because we see these schedule changes as problematic and think that since we’re paying for this education, we ought to be part of the process.”

“No one can defend the process and secrecy behind these decisions,” Gallagher said. “Most students wouldn’t have known
about them if members of the faculty hadn’t stood up for us and told their classes. As for the changes themselves, they’re a disaster for students. It’s going to make a lot of students have to choose between their right to work and the classes they need to graduate in four years.”

Hood Power currently has a petition running that’s surpassing expectations, Gallagher said. The group has also made a dominant effort on Facebook to make other students aware of what’s happening.

“Once we deliver our petition there are a lot of potential next steps, but what we do depends on how responsive administrators are to what students want,” Gallagher said. “We’re demanding that these schedule changes not be implemented in their current form. If changes happen in the future they need to come from administrators, faculty, and students working together. We need a democratic
and student-first process, one that builds our voice into the system.”

Justin Callas, 19, a sophomore, has been at Hood for two years now and has acclimated to the current schedule. His attitude toward the change reflects that of many students on campus.

“With the amount of students complaining about the change, why would they do it?” Callas said. “But, it really shouldn’t bother anyone, if students don’t want to take classes during the new time slots, then they should pick a different class.”