Chapel could be an hour earlier next semester

In an effort to meet the growing student population and address student needs, Oklahoma Christian University is considering changing chapel time to 10 a.m.

If passed, the probable chapel time change would be instated in the fall semester of this year.

“Schedule changes are always under study to determine how we can make small tweaks to enhance experiences for students or to expand the university’s mission,” Registrar Stephanie Baird said. “We believe such changes will enhance students’ experiences and progress [them] toward their goals.”

Oklahoma Christian has tried multiple solutions to these issues, including offering more courses after chapel and developing Ethos, according to Baird.

The proposed change reworks the schedule to accommodate for the influx of traffic in the cafeteria after chapel, and create more offerings of classes at later times during the day to alleviate crowded classrooms.

“For at least two years, our growth has pushed our food service lines longer and longer, so we tried to enhance the number of classes offered after chapel,” Baird said. “While that change has been underway for a few years, our growth finally hit a tipping point that demands larger changes – a challenge recognized by the president and all the vice presidents in a variety of arenas from food service to classroom capacities to faculty loads.”

Baird said the new schedule would allow for windows of time between waves of students releasing from chapel at 10:30 a.m. and classes at 12:30 p.m.

“One of the most, if not the most, thing complained about on social media is the line in the cafeteria, the cafeteria food, the caf in general,” Summer Lashley, spiritual life coordinator, said. “So we take those complaints seriously and they matter to us and our students matter to us. We’ve talked for a while about ways students can get in and out of the cafeteria faster and to not have to stand in a really long line.”

After speaking with Food Service Director Kurt Hermanson, Lashley said shorter lines are only part of the benefit the change would have on the cafeteria and students. Because of the lunch rush, the cafeteria is limited to what they can serve.

“If we reduce the line, then it gives [Kurt Hermanson] the chance to make higher quality food [and] more options … that he simply cannot do when the main goal of lunch is how fast they can get people eating.” Lashley said.

Some faculty and staff said the lunch lines are not as much of an issue as they appear.

“One of the things that has actually been discovered as students have been interviewed [is that] they’re standing in line because of choice,” Chair of History and Political Science John Maple said. “They’re mostly freshmen, it’s a time to socialize … they, after all, could do something else for thirty minutes and then come and not stand in line.”

Maple suggested creating a staggered lunch schedule by encoding incoming freshman’s ID cards to permit only students with 12:30 classes to eat immediately after chapel.

“If you take 300 freshmen out of the equation, you’ve gone a long ways towards solving the long caf line, it seems to me,” Maple said. “Do we really have to create all kinds of difficulties for hundreds of students because we don’t want people standing in line for 30 minutes? We think that perhaps there are a variety of ways of doing this and meeting the challenge.”

The main problem that arises from reworking the schedule is in departments that require labs, according to Maple. Oklahoma Christian’s top three majors – Biology, Engineering and Nursing – all require labs in their core curriculum courses.

“The major problem for departments needing lab time is that they need 2 hours and 50 minutes – a three-hour block basically – for lab,” Maple said. “If chapel moves to 10, then either you have to start labs at 7 a.m. … or your other option then is having two labs in the afternoon. … It gives less flexibility for the students.”

Chapel was originally at 10 a.m. but was moved in the 1990s to the current 11 a.m. time, according to Maple.

“My recollection is that we went to the 11 o’clock to accommodate those very departments to give them flexibility with labs and scheduling in labs more easily,” Maple said. “I think it was a meeting of the minds and everybody could see some advantages for making a change. It’s been that way for 25 years or so.”

Maple said the proposed change could negatively affect student athletes because they have to be out of class at a certain time for afternoon practices.

“So, if you’ve got an afternoon lab, that’s a real difficulty,” Maple said. “Or again, if you’re starting a lab at 7 a.m. lots of times, like in basketball, both men’s and women’s basketball at various times will have 6 a.m. practice and they’re out to make 8 o’clock classes. But, that’s going to be impossible.”

Aside from the advantages in cafeteria wait times, the new chapel time could allow students more class time options throughout the week, Baird said.

“By offering classes earlier and later in the day, we can accommodate such growth and provide more classes for students,” Baird said. “This also allows course schedules to be more flexible with students’ class and work schedules.”

Oklahoma Christian has a primarily resident-based student body with 85 percent of students living on campus. Evening classes can give students more flexibility in their schedules and could attract more non-traditional students.

“I’m a graduate student at another university and I couldn’t do that if they didn’t offer me a night class,” Lashley said. “So, I guess maybe the classes having later offerings excites me more … and I find it a little more significant than chapel being moved one hour.”

However, there are disadvantages to night classes.

“We’re requiring a whole slew of core curriculum classes to be taught at night and it seems to work against who we are and our current situation,” Maple said. “Night classes for the MBA, MSE graduate course make sense [because] most of those people are employed adults. That makes perfect sense. It doesn’t make sense for our typical student.”

Personal schedules can conflict with evening classes as well, according to Maple.

“I see a lot of problems there,” Maple said. “You think about club night, people being in Spring Sing, people being in musicals, basketball games, athletes that have practices – lots and lots of conflicts.”

Despite issues, however, faculty members are willing to facilitate the change for students.

“Certainly, if we can see a real need that can’t be met any other way, I think the vast majority of our faculty would be happy to accommodate,” Maple said. “I’m not so sure that we’ve identified a real need.”

As the university continues to grow, issues of accommodation arise and require evaluation, according to Baird.

“The reality of any change is that you don’t know how well it will work until you try it,” Baird said. “We may find that the change doesn’t solve the problems as well as we wanted it to. Or new issues may arise that were not anticipated. … The problems in the caf and with classroom spaces are only going to get worse, not better, if we don’t try something. So this is an effort to alleviate the pressures on the caf and classroom spaces.”

No official announcement has been made regarding the chapel time change. Overall, Oklahoma Christian administration is taking student opinion into consideration in the decision.

“In general, I just think that our students are so great because this is a lot going on,” Lashley said. “In two years, to have Ethos and then to have this, you’re heads are probably spinning. But really, both of these are in response to what the students have told us that they want different.”