“Hey, wait, what time is class again?”

“I keep forgetting we have class at 9:25…”

“I hate having to keep looking at my schedule.”

Confusion rings through the halls.  The great backpacked masses stumble through ever increasing waves of delirium as time seems to enter a dimension where it has no meaning.  The New Cairn Schedule! Oh the humanity!

Have no fear students, your schedules have not been designed by a deranged wizard in some dark tower.  Complaints and negative comments about the schedule have made their rounds on campus to the point that it seemed necessary to have an explanation for why your classes start at 9:25, 12:05 and other seemingly random times.  Have faith! Your administrators love you guys and planned this out very carefully. I was able to sit down with Dr. Brian Toews, the Director of University Studies, and ask him about the new schedule changes.

Here are some of your questions with answers:

Q: Why do we have these weird start times?  What’re we running here, a university or a train station?

A: This semester our college switched over from our old system of three, fifty minute Monday/Wednesday/Friday classes and two, hour and ten minute Tuesday/Thursday classes, with occasional three or so hour night classes to a block system based on the one used by Biola University.

This change comes to accommodate the new majors that we have added thanks to our Forward Campaign in the arts and sciences.  These majors require long periods in laboratories, for the sciences, and in studio for the arts. The preparation and clean up for these classes could easily take up the majority of class time in our previous schedule.  This change also allows education classes to accomplish on campus what would normally have to be taken off campus. Therefore, a modified block structure for classes was adopted for the benefit of these majors and the university as a whole.  

This change also fixed two other annoyances for students and faculty.  Longer classes made it easier for teachers to teach the material as they wished and devote more time to actually teaching.  Dr. Toews noted that many faculty members were pleased by the change in schedule. This schedule has also lessened the number of night classes in the year.  Trading out night classes for slightly longer Monday/Wednesday/Friday classes? That’s a great trade-off.

Going into the third week, I have to say, it seems to be going quite smoothly.  I, for one, feel like I’m getting more out of classes and I have more free time during the week.  This sentiment was echoed by a few of the students I talked to when writing this piece. The schedule adjustment is a minor challenge for us to adapt to something better for all of us.  

Q: Okay wiseguy, maybe fewer night classes and happier professors are good things, but why does the whole university have to follow this madness?

A: Logical response from the author: Required classes are required for everyone.  It would be awfully difficult to graduate if Intro to Bible was always being held in the middle of Biology Lab.  

Also, this is hardly madness.  This schedule change has been planned since 2016 and Dr. Toews said it seems to be going much smoother than he had expected.  He did say that many people were confused on the first week, as it was a change, especially for long-time students and faculty, but there had been no major impediments or recurring issues that he was aware of regarding class times and attendance.

Other questions that may arise:

Q: What’s the Forward Campaign and why is it ruining the carefully tuned rhythm of my life?  

A: The Forward Campaign is a three-pronged fundraising drive with three main goals to benefit our university: Increasing student scholarships through the Cairn Fund, improving our athletic facilities, and paving the way for new majors, such as Biology and Graphic Design that require those long class blocks.  Even though these additions to the school have changed our schedules, they are also a great blessing to us as individuals and to our beloved alma mater.  See guys?  We can have nice things!

Q: Ugh, whatever.  Are there more changes on the way?

A: Yes, yes there are.  Dr. Toews said that even though this has been planned over two calendar years, there were still some unfortunate unintended consequences and inconveniences that administration is working on fixing for next semester and the coming years.