Come spring, I'll be teaching three courses: two sections of Ethics and a section of Philosophy of Law. I teach the old-fashioned way, with chalk and a blackboard. I usually fill the entire board with diagrams, charts, arguments, and so forth. I just learned that my Ethics courses, which are back to back, are in different rooms. Think about what this would mean. I would fill the board during the first class, erase it as soon as class ended (which takes several minutes), walk to the new room, and write exactly the same material on the board in the second room (which would take 10 to 15 minutes)! It's so absurd that I can barely contain myself. When I complained about the room scheduling, I was told that it's hard to accommodate every professor and that these inconveniences sometimes occur. How hard could it be to program the computer to notice back-to-back sections of the same class and put them in the same room? This is not rocket science, people!
In case you're wondering, I will not teach my Ethics courses in different rooms. I will wander around campus, if I have to, until I find an empty room for the two class periods.
Addendum: I got the matter resolved. I should not have had to spend an hour of my life on this.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 