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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

Shelving Emergencies and Room Book Meditation


My sister works at the Brighton Library and apparently last week they had a ‘shelving emergency’. To those of us who are casual users of the library and take it for granted, a ‘shelving emergency’ sounds like a five year old with a broken crayon emergency. But, as my sister was happy to point out, the mission of the library is to provide the patrons with books. This becomes mission impossible if the books aren’t on the shelves.  A shelving emergency can lead to a major crisis at the library. After a (whispered) rousing pep talk, everyone from the maintenance staff to the librarian started shelving and the crisis was averted.

In the true spirit of sibling rivalry, I’m in the middle of a work crisis myself—a classroom space emergency.  We lost a lot of rooms in building 9—smart classrooms, computer labs, the massage therapy room, Optics labs, CIT labs—more than could be replaced. In the eighteen years I’ve been doing room scheduling, this is the most frustrating semester ever.  We are definitely in ‘make do’ mode for fall. 

Hopefully you aren’t one of the handful of people who do not yet have a classroom assignment.  For those of you who do not like the room(s) you are in, try to imagine how it feels to be this close to the start of classes and still not have a classroom, even an undesirable one. This is the stuff that keeps people awake at night. When I run my room scheduling program for the classes still missing rooms it comes up with ‘nothing available’. So now I’m in manual mode. Here’s how that works:

Mission: find a space for a TR 11:00-12:20 class that holds 35.

Routine Method: run the class through the room scheduling program and pick the most desirable of the available rooms listed. In this case the program tells me there are no rooms on campus available in this time slot. Go fish.

Manual Method:  revert to my hardcopy room book with a page for each classroom. Pull out all the pages that show any kind of TR space—10 minutes here, 15 minutes there—and lay them out all over my desk. Sit and stare at them until I can visualize how moving six different out of phase classes will carve out a TR 11:00-12:20 timeslot, not necessarily in the same room or even the same building.  Make all the room changes and shove the TR class in there. Return to the next class on the missing room list and start all over again. 

It literally took me two hours yesterday to carve out enough space for a TR 11 class.  (This is the reason I don’t like to take phone calls or have people come into the office to talk about room changes—it interrupts my high level of concentration needed to stare at a dozen room book pages until a vision appears. (I’m also quite anti-social.)

I realize there will be a lot of people who see that they are teaching in two different rooms for the same class who have never done this before. The MTH people are used to it but most people are not. But when you factor in the room shortage along with late start classes,  the two- hour one  day a week classes and the out of phase classes that cut 20 minutes into the next phase, a lot of juggling is required to fit everyone in. It does get ugly.

Room changes are going to be very difficult. When we are this crowded the only way to change your room is to kick someone else out of theirs. You may be teaching in a building you’ve never taught in before--maybe one you don’t like.  You may have to walk farther. You may need to order a smart cart because you can’t get a smart classroom.  The room may be a little crowded the first week until a few people drop out. I know it’s going to be tough. But for the first time in 18 years we are faced with ‘am I going to have a classroom at all’ rather than ‘can I get the classroom I want/need’.  Like the staff at the Brighton Library, we all need to pitch in and try to keep this room shortage from becoming a major crisis.

Now, I must return to my meditation because I still have three courses that need a classroom MWF at 1:00 and the room scheduling program tells me we are full…

P.S. Yes, there is a building 19—it’s not a typo. It contains 7 smart classrooms that hold 35 and a bathroom. It’s located on the east side of building 11. And yes, it’s full.

Deborah Benjamin
Registration and Records
09/02/2010