posted September 01, 2002 01:57 PM            

What's best? Best is most convenient for the students, of course: exactly the two or three courses they want to take at exactly the nights and times they want to take them.

That's impossible; it's not going to happen. Even if we got it to happen now, in September, by Spring someone is going to change her bowling night or need to tend to his suddenly sick parent.

Can we do one of the two, what or when? If the when is impossible six months in advance, what about the what? Can we make a schedule two mods in advance that each mod has at least two of the courses every student needs?

I believe we can. In August, we can make a schedule that will work the following January and April. In January, we can make a schedule that will work the following August and November.

We have one constraint and two restraining forces. By constraint, I mean conditions that won't change. Simply put, the MBA program is a small part of a larger department and an even larger institution. There are only so many classrooms and so many time slots. There are only so many teachers and we want to keep class sizes close to 15 students.

When Faith and Bill take our ideal schedule to Curriculum Committee to meet with a dozen other department chairs and program directors, no one gets exactly what they want. Truth be known, Faith and Bill are consummate masters of organizational behavior, so they'll do the best job that can be done. However, it probably won't be exactly our ideal.

By restraints, I mean things and processes that we can change. The first is the technical part, building a database that will let everyone express their preferences and will then spit back a schedule that satisfies everyone. Let me amend that .... a schedule that gets as close as mathematically possible to satisfying everyone.

The second restraint is your information. Can you predict six months ahead what you want to take? Sure, but things will change. OK, if things change, can you then accept that you might not get an ideal schedule?
We aren't proposing online registration (yet). What we're proposing will be needed even if we have online registration. What we're proposing is online prediction of demand.

We're trying to avoid:

• too large and too small classes (12 - 18 is ideal)
• cancelled classes
• the lack of classes slowing down your progress through the program
• the chancy, last-minute registration that leaves too many students and faculty unhappy

What we propose:

1) During your first mod, sit down with your advisor and tentatively plan out the whole rest of your program, mod by mod. We require only sixteen courses and most of you take one or two per mod for ten to twelve mods.

It will be especially helpful if you can indicate your Concentration preferences far ahead of when you'll take the courses.

2) Every August and January, update your tentative schedule.

Tip | When you have too many Foundation and Core options, choose the course with the lower number.

3) When we issue a tentative schedule in September and February, make sure you can get what you want before Faith and Bill go to Curriculum Committee.

Problem | What will we do when twenty-one students want a course, which is too many for one section and too few for two sections?

4) When the schedule gets finalized in October and March, check it to make sure you can still get what you want and tell your advisor ASAP about any problems.

If there is a pattern to the individual problems, we can sometimes fix it if we have enough time.

5) When registration time comes in November and April, don't wait. Register then. You can always add/drop later.

Courses canceling or closing are a common cause of overcrowded courses. Then the clumping snowballs.

6) If things in your life change, make the schedule changes you can, and accept those you can't.

Feedback on this proposal is most welcome. Click Post Reply and let's talk about it.

posted September 02, 2002 12:51 PM            

What Doug has proposed is a way to alleviate problems for all parts of the MBA system, which include, most importantly, students, faculty, admissions, registrar, IST, and the greater whole, which is Medaille College. If the college is truly going to live up to its reputation, we, i.e., all the parts of the system need to live up to our responsibilities.
Systems are a general response to the problem of complexity. What I have seen here in my very short time as program director is a lot of good parts that, at times, do not interact well. Many of these interactions have been addressed in the past by intelligent and caring individuals. My job is to continue those efforts and continue to fix some of these interactive problems.
This not a job for the Lone Ranger or someone who thinks he is smart enough to do this himself. I am not that smart and have never worn a mask. Therefore, this must be a collective effort to make this MBA program work for you, the faculty, the admissions people, and the registrar, inter alia. This grogram will only be as good as we make. We need to get the right students enrolled, advise them how to move through the program to get what they want and when they want it, have a caliber learning experiences in the classroom, have that learning the dual responsibility of student and the professor, and graduate MBAs that are respected and desired in our community. This is the job! We are all workers in the completion of this complex task.
Doug has outlined how you can help, at least, initially. We will detail other ways as we move ahead. It would be an understatement to say how important your contribution is.

Doug, Faith, and I will be putting together the spring semester schedule this upcoming week with the input we, hopefully, receive from you.
We will do the best we can with the constraints and restraints that Doug mentioned. Our job now is to work as optimally for the MBA program success as possible. We will do our best to do just that.