The College is set to completely overhaul its timetabling system to allow for reforms to the curriculum introduced as part of the Trinity Education Project, The University Times has learned.
A review will be undertaken this year for the new system to be implemented for the next academic year.
A fixed timetable will be necessary if the new electives – a key reform under the project – are to be successfully implemented.
From next September, second and third-year students will be able to take on approved modules and electives. Approved modules are new or existing modules in fields within or complementary to the core subject area of students. They may be core modules for other subjects, but not for the student’s core subject, and are worth 20 credits.
Electives are stand-alone, university-wide modules that are not available to a student as part of the core programme of their degree. All electives will be available to all students across all disciplines, with choices from across all subjects.
Electives are designed to link research carried out in Trinity with the undergraduate curriculum. Once the new timetable system is finalised, they will be held at the same time for all students across faculties.
Speaking to The University Times about the approved modules and electives, the Vice-Provost, Chris Morash, said that “they both have the same purpose, which is breadth. The approved modules are modules that, for the most part already exist, in other subjects.”
“We’ve got another year to get these in place”, Morash said. “We’re unique – but not in a good way – in the way we do timetabling”, he added.
The university has hired a not-for-profit consultancy firm, SUMS, which does extensive work on university governance in the UK.
Speaking about the electives, Morash said: “They’re offered across the university. They will be large. And they will, in theory, be able to accommodate anyone who wants to take them. They’re going to be based around things like our research teams.”
He said the Trinity electives will be “a really distinctive feature of Trinity education”.
Morash said that in other universities, there is a danger “where you’ve got very active and respected research cultures and leading researchers who never see a student from one year to the next and that’s never been a culture here”.
“But now what we want to be sure is that we have actual structures in our undergraduate degree that allow our research excellence to feed into the undergraduate curriculum”, he said.
Morash said that the capacity for approved modules will be limited and that the College has yet to decide whether students will be admitted to them based on grades or on a first-come, first-served basis.
Writing in The University Times in 2017, Provost Patrick Prendergast said the electives will “broaden student learning”. Prendergast said the electives would be designed and developed “in areas of research strength in the university”.
Research themes to be rolled-out in 2019/20 as part of the implementation of electives include: Vaccines – Friend or Foe, Engaging in the Digital World: Today and Tomorrow, A World to Discover: Travel Writing at Trinity, Toolkit for a Smart and Sustainable World and The Art of the Megacity.
The Trinity Education Project will be fully implemented next September. This year, students studying in the Health Science and Engineering, Mathematics and Science faculties have seen wholesale changes to the curriculum. Christmas exams have been introduced across the board for the first time ever this year.
Speaking to The University Times, the College Bursar, Veronica Campbell, said: “I really welcome the fixed timetable in the context of space management and I think it’s going to allow us to be much more organised about it because we’ll have advanced visibility of what needs will be.”
The Trinity Education Project is a radical reimagining of how College delivers its undergraduate curriculum. It has, not, however, been without its teething problems, particularly around the changes it has precipitated in the structure of Trinity’s academic year.
In May, SIPTU accused College of treating staff with disdain, as Trinity battled with three trade unions over an earlier start to the year. A motion voted on by members of SIPTU, accused the College of failing to engage with staff concerns around the project.
Last month, The University Times reported that Christmas exams will be held in the RDS this year, with evening exam sittings likely. In an email statement to The University Times, the College Press Officer, Caoimhe Ní Lochlainn, confirmed that exams would take place in RDS Simmonscourt, and said that a proposal was going through the Undergraduate Studies Committee to determine the timing of assessments. “We are committed to no student sitting more than two assessments per day with a maximum of three per day being scheduled”, she said. In their first year, Christmas exams will take place between December 10th and 14th.
The confirmation of the RDS as a venue for Christmas exams came after months of discussions and concerns about where to host the exams. Trinity has long struggled to accommodate all students in suitable venues throughout the exam season, with limited space on campus. Simmonscourt hall, located of the RDS, is significantly larger than the Main Hall used to accommodate summer sittings. UCD students sit their summer exams in the larger Simmonscourt.
Ní Lochlainn said that the venue, which is regularly used for concerts and other events, was chosen “with the objective of scheduling as many exams as possible”. Students with disabilities, who regularly sit exams in on-campus venues, may not have to sit exams in the venue, with cases assessed individually.
