Emmie Boese
Lantern Staff
Administration mandated a new format for faculty’s door schedule before the spring semester. Although the policy for the number of hours required for faculty has not changed, faculty this semester are required to use an Excel spreadsheet when creating their door schedule.
Lori Winningham, vice president of Academic Affairs, feels this common format for the door schedule will work well for faculty.
“Years ago, we used the template and over the 20 years or so, we’ve just kind of moved away from using a standard format, and [last fall the deans had [a] discussion [and] felt it might] be helpful to all of the people [to] use the door schedule to have a common format,” Winningham said, who has worked at Butler for 28 years. “Part of the reason for that is that sometimes door schedules would get turned in without a name on them and then you got to figure out who is this.”
Administration also discussed how the common format fits the master agreement well, a policy that requires faculty to have at least 35 hours a week scheduled.
Terry Sader, a professor of philosophy and ethics, agrees that the common format follows the master agreement.
“It, for the most part, is met by the master agreement,” Sader said.“There aren’t really any concerns. Sometimes details need to be worked out.”
Winningham explained that there was a group called together to discuss a common format for faculty.
“We had a committee that included faculty,” Winningham said. “John Craig, [an associate dean of Humanities and Social Sciences], called that group together. Every group was given the opportunity to submit a couple of faculty members.”
Winningham said that once the committee finalized their decision, they sent it to Dean’s Counsel for discussion.
“Once John had incorporated that group’s suggestions, he brought it to Dean’s Council and we discussed it and made a few modifications for the Dean’s Counsel’s needs, and then we decided we wanted to implement that in the spring,” Winningham said.
Some faculty members are frustrated with the new format, but Robert Carlson, a professor of chemistry, does not see the common format as an issue.
“Honestly, it is not a new format,” Carlson said. “This is the format that I have been using [for] 30 years at Butler, so it is really not a big deal. The format that I started with looked the same except that you typed into the form the classes.”
Winningham is interested in gathering feedback from faculty to see what works best and what might work better in the future.
“I’m interested in gathering feedback after this first semester to see what the consensus is,” Winningham said. “If there’s something that isn’t working very well, I’m interested pointing out what that is.”
