Big Spring Herald

Howard College to offer courses in eight-week format

By ROGER CLINE Managing Editor

In the near future, Howard College will begin offering many courses in an eightweek format instead of the current 16-week semester schedule it currently employs.

Vice President Academic and Student Affairs Dr. Amy Burchett reported on the new scheduling scheme during the Howard County Junior College Board meeting on Monday. Burchett said consideration of the change was spurred by successes other colleges have had offering courses with an eight-week scheduling format.

“Odessa College was probably one of the first colleges in Texas to look at a shortened format for the majority of their courses,” she said. “I think that was 10 years ago. Since that time, the success that they have had – and there are other colleges outside Texas as well that have had great success with this – other colleges have learned, have researched. We have been looking at this for numerous years.” Burchett said most, but not all courses will adhere to the eight-week format.

“This is a model where the vast majority of our courses will be in an eight-week format,” she said. “There will be things like your activity courses, like Theater. Those probably won't be eight weeks, because they need to be putting on productions the entire year, and their classes have rehearsals in the evenings, things like that. There will be clinicals for nursing and other health professions. Those will span the entire 16 weeks. So there are certain things where it doesn't make sense, or it isn't practical or reasonable. But for the majority, students will be full-time over the 16-week session.

They may take three courses the first eight-week term, and two courses the next eight-week term, so that's 15 hours over the whole 16 weeks.”

Burchett said goals of the change include improving students' program completion rate, improving persistance and student retention.

The total amount of instructional hours will remain the same, Burchett said.

“The contact hours are still the same,” she said. “Like, English 1301 is still 48 contact hours with the Coordinating Board. A contact hour is 50 minutes, so we have it down where you calculate the number of minutes that have to be in that class. Some courses, instead of meeting two days a week, they'll meet four days a week. Some are meeting double the time, two days a week. And some are meeting in a hybrid format.”

Burchett said registration for classes under the new format will begin April 26.

During the meeting, Howard College President Dr. Cheryl Sparks announced the list of cabinet appointments for the school, including:

• Dr. Amy Burchett, Executive Vice President

• Pam Callan, Provost of the San Angelo campus

• Jeff Anderson, Interim Provost of the Southwest College for the Deaf campus

• Monica Castro, Executive Dean of the Lamesa campus

• Eric Hansen, Chief of Technology Systems and Data Security Officer

• Fabian Serrano, Chief of Operations and Safety/security Officer

• Steve Smith, Chief Business Officer

• Brenda Claxton, Chief Financial Officer

• Bryan Stokes, Chief Institutional Effectiveness Officer

• Rhonda Kernick, Chief Human Resources Officer

• Brenda Madore, Chief of Staff and Institutional Advancement Officer.

Sparks also announced that the board will begin holding special meetings focused on each of its four campuses in the near future. According to Sparks, the special meetings will begin on June 13, 14 or 15 with a special meeting at Howard College's San Angelo campus. A meeting at the SWCD campus is scheduled in conjunction with that school's anniversary celebration Oct. 23; a meeting at the Lamesa campus will be scheduled either Nov. 1 or 2; and a meeting at the Big Spring campus will take place in conjunction with the Board meeting already scheduled on Nov. 13.

Other items discussed during the meeting included:

• Texas Success Center/talent Strong Texas Pathways;

• A recap of the recent Howard County Leadership Summit;

• Small Class Reports;

• Audiovisual upgrades to the Distance Learning rooms;

• Authorization of the auction of Howard County Trustee properties;

• Updates on the renovations at the Library and Music Buildings;

• Food service and kitchen updates at the Big Spring and SWCD campuses;

• Implementation of the Student Information System project.

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2023-03-29T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-03-29T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://bigspringherald.pressreader.com/article/281487870606887

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