Introduction 

This document lays out the shared principles that guide our approach to developing course schedules and assigning instructional responsibilities within the School of Human Ecology at UW-Madison. These principles are designed to optimize student learning and progress, ensure the strategic use of our valuable resources, cultivate a dynamic and supportive academic environment, and foster a commitment to continuous improvement informed by data.

Crafting an effective course schedule involves navigating a complex landscape of factors and making thoughtful trade-offs among various important objectives. These Guiding Principles are not intended to dictate a single, rigid solution for every specific situation. Instead, they represent our collective understanding and shared aspirations for making decisions that advance both student success and instructor well-being. While these principles underscore a mutual accountability across faculty and administration to uphold our mission, it is understood that final decisions will be made by department chairs, considering the broader institutional context and the comprehensive needs of our academic programs and stakeholders.

Guiding Principles 

1. Student-Centered Scheduling

The fundamental and most important goal of our course scheduling efforts is to prioritize student success. This includes pedagogical considerations, course access, and facilitating timely degree completion. We are dedicated to creating a schedule that minimizes conflicts, maximizes accessibility, and thoughtfully responds to the diverse needs of our student body.

To achieve this, we will collectively focus on:

• • Pedagogical-informed planning: Aligning course structure with course pedagogy and learning objectives.

  • Data-informed planning: Utilizing enrollment data to ensure adequate seat capacity, particularly in foundational and high-demand courses.

  • Predictable course roadmaps: Offering required courses in a timely and predictable manner to support clear student progression.

  • Proactive conflict mitigation: Strategically avoiding scheduling conflicts, especially between prerequisite and co-requisite courses.

  • Diverse learning options: Providing a rich array of course formats and delivery methods, including exploring options that enhance learning outcomes.

  • Engaging introductory experiences: Designing introductory courses with ample capacity and an engaging structure to attract and support exploratory undergraduate students.
    
    

2. Equitable Instructor Workload Distribution

Our overarching aim is to ensure an equitable and thoughtful distribution of teaching responsibilities among all Human Ecology instructors (faculty, teaching faculty, teaching professors, and lecturers), reflecting their specific role expectations, expertise, and career stages. We value the critical contributions of every instructor to the School's instructional mission.

To achieve this, we will collectively focus on:

• • Consideration for career stage and responsibilities: Workload assignments will thoughtfully account for an instructor's career stage, including provisions for new instructors during onboarding, significant administrative duties, external funding opportunities, and involvement in pedagogical innovation.

  • Shared instructional burden: We will work to avoid disproportionately burdening a few instructors with high-enrollment and/or labor-intensive courses. We will strive to provide opportunities for instructors to teach a mix of courses over time and ensure multiple instructors are capable of teaching required courses.

  • Valuing preferences within constraints: Instructors will have opportunities to discuss their teaching needs and preferences with department chairs to inform scheduling considerations. Final assignments will balance these preferences with the comprehensive needs of students, the curriculum, and the School's overall instructional capacity.

  • Timely communication: We aim to finalize teaching assignments well in advance of the semester. It is a shared responsibility to review draft schedules for potential conflicts.

  • Holistic workload assessment: When making instructional assignments, we will consider various course variables that impact workload, such as the number of new course preparations, total number of course preps, course size, modality, pedagogical intensity, community-engaged learning, etc.

  • Strategic instructional support utilization: We will effectively utilize Teaching Assistants, Lecturer Student Assistants, and reader/graders to support student professional development and to help manage instructor workloads. We will also invest in alternative and more expansive models of instructional support, both as a means of easing instructor workload and to increase course capacity when needed.

3. Effective Resource Utilization 

Our instructional spaces and financial capabilities are valuable assets. Their efficient and effective stewardship enhances our capacity to deliver high-quality learning experiences across the School.

To achieve this, we will collectively focus on:

• • Budget awareness: Being cognizant of course costs and revenue opportunities in building course schedules and managing enrollments. 
  • Adherence to university standards: Aligning with the UW-Madison standard meeting pattern policy.
  • Balanced distribution: Distributing course offerings throughout the week to optimize student accessibility and instructional space usage.
  • Pedagogy-driven space assignments: Prioritizing pedagogical needs in classroom assignments, considering factors such as class size, instructional purpose, and specialized equipment or technology requirements.
  • Strategic long-range planning: Planning course offerings at least a year in advance to facilitate optimal resource allocation.
  • Inter-departmental coordination: Fostering collaboration in course scheduling across departments to support interdisciplinarity and enhance resource utilization.
  • Data-driven continuous improvement: Collecting, analyzing, and reporting Human Ecology-specific course enrollment and classroom utilization data.
  • Advisor insights: Utilizing academic advisor expertise to understand the student experience as it relates to course sequencing and availability.
    
    

4. Curriculum Innovation and Interdisciplinarity

Actively fostering teaching innovation and championing interdisciplinary learning is fundamental to our human-centered, ecological approach to education and research.

To achieve this, we will collectively focus on:

• • Coordinated interdisciplinary scheduling: Developing mechanisms to coordinate course schedules across departments, particularly for interdisciplinary requirements and high-demand courses.
  • Incentivizing innovation: Recognizing and encouraging pedagogical innovations, especially those that emphasize interdisciplinarity, reinforce Human Ecology’s identity, promote community engagement, or enhance student career development.
  • Investing in professional growth: Providing robust professional development opportunities for instructors teaching new courses or adopting new pedagogical approaches.

Planning Process

The planning and decision making process is a difficult and complex balancing act.  With support from API,CAPS and program coordinators, department chairs make final decisions by weighing many factors (many of which are outside their control) and seeking input from multiple stakeholders. The curricular planning process happens early, typically a full year in advance.  Here is a sample timeline for academic year planning: