While waiting for my double-shot latté at Café Bibo this morning, at the south end of the University of Nevada, Reno campus, a flyer caught my eye. It asked if I “had a _ in my spring schedule?” The _ was a hole punched in the card. Intrigued, I turned it over and found a promotion for signing up for “late-start, weekend” classes.
In the Communications Department we have often toyed with the idea of adding Saturday classes and as far as I can tell we are all for the idea. The thing that gets in our way of course, is that we are maxed out on the number of sections we can offer and they are all full, so why would we need to? The idea of adding a late-start section to our offerings would not necessarily change that situation but perhaps it would add a valuable option and my guess is that it would fill up. Why? Because with students scrambling in the first two weeks to sort out their schedules, playing leap-frog to try to get into courses they need, having a class (or many classes across campus) that start a few weeks into the term would take off some of the pressure on both students and instructors.
What do you think?
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Dr. Marcella LaFever (University of New Mexico, 2005) is an Associate Professor in the Communications Department at the University of the Fraser Valley. She specializes in intercultural communication and brings that expertise to various subjects such as communication for workplace, instruction, social media, team and public speaking contexts.