Class and Office Hours

Class and Office Hours, as laid out by the Faculty Handbook:

1. All syllabi must be submitted through Moodle to the online syllabus archive maintained on the Registrar’s website as specified in Section V. Academic Regulations. Documentation of course meeting times for federal credit hour verification can be found in those syllabi. This information is available to any student, faculty, or staff member who desires such information.
2. All OCAAT courses meet at 9:00 a.m. or at 12:00 p.m. on the first day of the term. All classes end at 3:00 p.m. on the eighteenth day of each term except before Thanksgiving recess, winter vacation, and spring break, when they end at 12:00 p.m. In the event that Thanksgiving recess falls within the fourth term, classes will end at 12:00 p.m. on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.
3. Faculty assigned classrooms for the entire day are free to schedule their classes to meet as they wish between 8:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. Faculty sharing classrooms are free to schedule their classes at any time between 8:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. (for morning classes) or between 12:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. (for afternoon classes), Monday through Friday. The following exceptions apply: 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Tuesday is reserved for faculty meetings and 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Thursday is reserved for convocations and meeting times.
4. Adjunct courses (numbered in the 500s) and Music Lessons, Ensembles and English or Theatre participations activities (numbered in the 700s) generally meet in the hours after 3 p.m., Monday through Friday, unless all students registered for an adjunct course can arrange to meet at alternate times that do not interfere with their OCAAT course meetings. Adjunct courses cannot meet between the hours of 11:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
5. Courses receiving one course credit typically meet for a minimum of 50 hours of classroom or direct faculty instruction (equivalent to 2¾ hours per day), courses receiving ½ credit meet for a minimum of 25 hours, and courses receiving ¼ credit meet for a minimum of 12.5 hours. Classroom and direct faculty instruction include required group and individual meetings with the primary course instructor and required meetings with ancillary faculty involved in the course (e.g., consulting librarians, consultants in the Center for Teaching and Learning and laboratory instructors). Courses meeting fewer than these minimums include significant projects and activities that extend beyond normally expected out-of-class student work and that are clearly delineated in the course syllabus. (Federal regulations state that each hour of classroom instruction should typically require a minimum of two hours of out-of-class student work.
6. College-sponsored course and field trips are not bound by the preceding restrictions. There are two cases where the above rules do not apply.
   1. Courses involving Course Trips. Course trips are off-campus activities constituting the main body of teaching and learning for the course. Course trips may be set for a substantial fraction of the term or for the entire term. Instructors should supply as much information as possible about the off-campus components of a course to all students at the time of registration. This information will be published in the Catalogue Supplement on the registrar’s website and be available from the course instructor. In order to facilitate reimbursement to students for missed meals, instructors should provide in writing the dates of the trip and a list of participants to the Business Office at least seven days in advance of the course term at issue. (This will enable the Business Office to distribute refund checks prior to departure.)
   2. Courses involving Field Trips that extend beyond normal class hours. These are course-related activities ranging from a few hours to a few days in duration and involving the class outside the normal class hours described above. Instructors should supply as much information as possible about field trips that extend over more than one day to all students at the time of registration. This information will be published in the Catalogue Supplement on the registrar’s website and be available from the course instructor. Information describing field trips that are required must be made available to the class on the first day of the course. The “Absence from Class (Students)” policy also applies to Field Trips. Professors should be sensitive, however, to the students’ other activities and obligations when Field Trips that extend beyond normal class hours are rescheduled. In order to facilitate reimbursement to students for missed meals, instructors should provide in writing the dates of the trip and a list of participants to the Business Office at least seven days in advance of the field trip. (For one-day Field Trips Bon Appétit will provide box lunches. For longer trips, this will enable the Business Office to distribute refund checks prior to departure.)
7. Faculty members are encouraged to establish and keep regular office hours and to be available by appointment for those students who cannot come at the regularly scheduled office hours.