Glossary of Terms

New schedule, new language. Not sure what a Bridge Day is? Or how Capstone Week works?

Our Glossary of Terms breaks down the key concepts and new structures introduced through Integrated Scheduling.

Glossary

Working Terms

Block scheduling - a common framework/unit of measurement for standard class times/activities. Summer CSI Scheduling Committee 2025 agreed on the use of 1-hour and 30-minute blocks of time (college classes = 50 minutes with 10 minutes passing time; high school academics = 55 minutes with 5 minutes passing time). Originally also may have referred to DLA protected time, which will no longer be included.

Shortened Part of Term (SPOT) - referring to first half/second half semester sessions where shortened, more intensive courses may be offered. For reference in planning, these courses would require double the daily seat time, but would run for half of the weekly length (ie. for a 3-credit course = 6 hours per week, with 12 hours of outside work per week, for 8 weeks).

Part of term - technically, a full semester is "part of term" in relation to the academic year, so UNCSA's efforts toward designing 8-week courses are "shortened part of term" or "SPOT" classes.

Modules - Canvas design; this term should not be used interchangeably with shortened part of term.

Intermission - a two-hour time block inclusive of faculty standing committee meetings where no classes or faculty-driven activities can be scheduled; a time of student choice and agency in the middle of each week.

Collaborative Day - designed as three designated, planned days per semester in which there are no regular classes, lessons, production requirements, or similar expectations for any of our students. Faculty are expected to participate in the day’s required events.

Arts Wednesday - a day dedicated to art school activities, where no DLA or HSAP classes (HS exceptions for health and yearbook) are scheduled.

UNCSA working schedule model - the agreed-upon framework for class scheduling that all UNCSA units will use to place curricular requirements

Cross-listed courses - courses that are offered under more than one subject prefix within the Division of Liberal Arts or in more than one school/division, but with instruction at the same time, in the same location, and with the same instructor(s).

Co-listed courses - courses at different levels (high school, undergrad, and/or grad) and with different course numbers, but with instruction at the same time, in the same location, and with the same instructor(s).

Linked courses - a combination of different academic components that are treated as one course, as in a lecture/lab or lecture/discussion course pairing.

Archived terms

In-Service Day, Wellness Days, Faculty Professional Days

In-service day - Starting in 2018-19, in-service days were partial days (4-hour blocks in either the morning or the afternoon) where classes and regular educational activities were suspended in order to create space and time for cross-campus faculty development. One in-service day was designated each semester. This term was borrowed from public schools, where in-service days refer to a day where students do not attend school, and teachers participate in professional development activities.

Wellness day - Stemming from the COVID year (2019-20), wellness days were free days that were placed in the academic calendar during the week (Tuesday through Thursday) to encourage rest and recovery for the UNCSA community without encouraging students to leave the UNCSA community.

Faculty professional days - for 2022-23 and 2023-24, these calendar designations indicated days where faculty have professional obligations (faculty meetings, training, opportunity for larger conversations or similar work) over the course of a full academic day; students were free to use these days as they saw fit.

Accent days - stands for "Art-Centered Collaborative Experiential and Networking Time"; a concept presented by David Winkelman as an alternative to Collaborative Days.

Banded time - originally conceived as a time when all faculty and students were not otherwise scheduled, to be used for cross-disciplinary classes, faculty conversations, etc. Now referred to as Intermission.

Intensive Arts - the two-week period coinciding with Nutcracker, when UNCSA used to have experiential, intensive arts exploration. Such experiences can happen in other ways but will no longer be conducted outside of the construct of the regularly scheduled curriculum. Continued use of this term would be problematic.

CSI – Collaborative Scheduling Initiative; an intentional, designed effort to create

Golden Hour - Historical term for the reserved time for campus-wide committee meetings on Wednesdays 12:45 - 2:00 pm. Classes were not scheduled during this period – particularly for committee members - to enable participation. This concept has subsequently been incorporated into the Intermission block of time.

To be defined

Production