Revised Scheduling Principles Effective February 2026 

The scheduling principles have been slightly revised in order to support classroom needs with a reduced classroom inventory.  The revised scheduling principles include:

• The introduction of a new schedule block – “U” block – that meets Tuesday and Thursday, from 4:00 to 5:20 pm. This block is for courses with anticipated enrollments greater than 40 students, and should be taught by nonvoting faculty.
• Steps to ensure that courses are spread more evenly over the standard 2 and 3 day per week timeslots to make optimal use of available spaces.
• Capping class sizes to assigned classroom capacities. Room assignments are determined by
  • historical enrollments for previously offered courses.
  • faculty /department requests a different sized room using the Classroom Request Application if there is a reason to expect larger (or smaller) than usual enrollment.
  • collaboration with departments to estimate class sizes for new courses

Standard Blocks

Standard blocks are the 14 blocks in which classes are offered 2 (T,Th) or 3 (M,W,F) days a week. There are 14 standard blocks: A-L, T, and U. The AB block still counts as a single block for the usage count.  (AB and T blocks meet only M,W).

• Departments must now use 12 distinct standard blocks before repeating use of a standard block.
• Note that T and U blocks are only for courses with an enrollment target of 40+ students, because those blocks overlap with seminar blocks M, N, P and Q, which make use of classrooms with capacity below 40.

Seminar Blocks 

Seminar blocks (M-Q) are the 5 blocks in which classes are offered once per week. The scheduling principles for seminar blocks are unchanged.  

• For the 5 standard seminar patterns (meeting patterns M-Q), no pattern may be re-used until at least 3 distinct seminar blocks are utilized.

Capping Class Size

All classes will be capped for the next academic year (AY 26-27). The goal of capping classes is not to reduce or limit availability of high-demand classes, but to permit greater predictability, facilitate planning, and more fully utilize all the classroom space available at a given time slot. The Registrar will work with Departments to sensibly set caps based on prior enrollments and anticipated enrollment changes (‘Projected Enrollment’). As always, instructors can provide registration overrides if they can manage enrollment and attendance in the assigned space. See details in the Addenda below.

Language Instruction Exceptions

The scheduling principles for language based instruction are unchanged. These units often offer multiple course sections to deliver language instruction that meet more than 2 or 3 times per week, which necessarily results in scheduling violations. See details in the Addenda below.

Non-Standard Offerings

Non-Standard class offerings are those that are not in one of the 19 approved blocks (14 standard, and 5 seminar blocks). These are discouraged because they are likely to overlap with one of the regular blocks and prevent students from taking classes scheduled in regular blocks. Non-standard class offerings will be approved by the Office of the Registrar if and only if both of the following criteria are met:

• The course is being offered in departmentally-controlled space
• The course has an approved enrollment limit that is at or below the capacity of departmentally-controlled space(s) and will not exceed that limit. 

Note: University-Controlled space will NOT be provided in non-standard scheduling blocks.

Scheduling Violations

Proposed class times that do not align with the scheduling principles in any standard or seminar block will only be approved in cases where the department is utilizing departmentally-controlled space with the same conditions as applied for non-standard meeting patterns.

Midterm Exams

Midterm scheduling policies are unchanged. Some large classes give exams during evening hours in order to find rooms where there can be an empty seat between students. We encourage classes that can comfortably give midterms in the assigned classroom to do so. However the practice of giving midterm exams in the evening can continue for classes that require it. 

Scheduling Formal Discussion Sections

The guidelines for scheduling of Discussion Sections remains the same. Please refer to the following details on the Office of the Registrar website: https://registrar.brown.edu/sites/default/files/PDFs/Guidance%20on%20Scheduling%20of%20Discussion%20Sections_rev.pdf

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ADDENDA

Assigning rooms and capping classes: making sure we get it right

Classes will be placed according to ‘Projected Enrollment’ along with consideration for room preferences provided in the Classroom Request Application, which must be submitted when course offerings are at the ‘Department Approved’ stage in the Course Offering Builder.  The ‘Projected Enrollment’ Process will involve the following:

• For existing courses - The Registrar's Office has created reports that look at the total actual (post-shopping) enrollment for the past 3 years.
  • We will adjust for factors such as whether the course is now moving from Fall to Spring or vice versa, and will analyze upward and downward trends to land at a reasonable projection. If the course incorporates enrollments for masters students, the Registrar’s Office will incorporate enrollment increase projections from those figures garnered from SPS into the course projections and consult with departments on those targets.
  • Requests for increasing ‘Projected Enrollment’ submitted in the Classroom Request Application  will be carefully reviewed by the Registrar and the Associate Provost for Academic Space. Note that ‘Projected Enrollment’ and preferred timeslot are primary drivers of room assignment, thus satisfying all room preferences may not always be possible.
• For Newly introduced courses - Registrar’s staff will consult with departmental staff to obtain a reasonable enrollment projection and use that figure when determining whether the time proposed will be approved and to guide classroom placement and the resulting cap. 

Once a course’s classroom assignment has been approved by the Office of the Registrar staff, the class will be capped at the size permitted by the assigned classroom.

Language Instruction Exceptions

There have been no changes in these procedures. For language based instruction, the following procedures still apply:

• The maximum number of language instruction course sections per department/center that can be offered in any given time slot is five. (Note: The only exception is the open Tuesday & Thursday 12 – 12:50 p.m. slot. In this slot the unit may offer up to six language sections)
• If the department offers the maximum five language instruction courses, said department/center cannot also offer non-language instruction courses (topics, literature, culture, etc.) in those time slots unless they secure departmentally controlled space.
• If the department offers less than the maximum five language instruction courses, said department can offer no more than one non-language instruction course (topics, literature, culture, etc.) in those time slots unless they secure departmentally controlled space.