Evan Reed

There is a task force that has been established by the president of the college, Dr. Chapdelaine, and the board of trustees to study the whole issue of faculty workload. And finally professional service to Hood College and to their students. This group will will meet for the first time on this coming Friday. It consists of two trustees, three faculty members and the provost. They will provide a statement about the issue and a significant amount of data describing what has happened in this curricular area over the last several years.

In 2010 as part of the overall discussion of what kind of work faculty does and how they should be paid or are paid. After spending much of an academic year on this topic. The board put it into a faculty vote; Should they go to a four course four credit system or “because the Board of Trustees felt that this would be one way of reducing instructional costs and providing additional monies to raise faculty salaries.”Explains Dr. Schick.
Should they increase the faculty teaching expectations from six courses in a year to seven. The faculty rejected both of those suggestions in 2011.

Hood College requires 124 semester credits and the task force has to do something to bring alignment with the number of courses or credits required for graduation. Most schools that have a four course four credit system needing 128 or 132 credits to graduate. So part of the issue is how many credits or courses will be required for a degree.
“I’m afraid of not graduating on time because I can’t get the courses I need.” Satori Thomas a sophomore said, when asked are you have trouble registering for next semester?

In the beginning of the spring of 2014 some academic departments began to change some of their courses from three credit courses to four credit courses. Those who changed credit course loads adjust their classes to meet like three credit courses, three 50 minute periods in a week with a fourth 50 minute to an hour in which they do not meet but students work on their own so they get additional study time.

“I have noticed a difference because I was just working out my schedule for next semester and I have courses overlapping due to the time changes and credit changes.” says Chris Woltz a junior., when asked are you have trouble registering for next
semester?

But the programs that have changed the number of credits in their majors or minors or concentrations have no apparent sign the affects on overall undergraduate curricular mix between core requirements, major or minor concentration requirements and free electives.

While you see it is a complex issue that involves student’s education it involves the nature of a faculty members professional activities, teaching scholarship and student advising. It involves the overall curriculum of the institution, involves Hood College’s finances.

It is a complex issue that has financial, intellectual, workload, morale, governance, issues of all types. it is an interesting somewhat tangled web of issues that they have been directed by the board to sort through which will involve differ through conversations and sharing of information and we will tend to fix this.
Clarified by Dr. Schick.

This issue has course credits is part of a bigger picture were it can effect the graduation rates of Hood College.
Hood College’s graduation rates for First-time Full-time Freshmen based on 2009- 2014
-55% Four years
-64% Five years
-66% Six years
This is a big issue that has to be addressed to improve Hood’s graduation rates for future students.