Dance of the Scheduling Fairies

For the past two weeks committee chairs have been performing the twice-yearly Dance of the Scheduling Fairies as they try to determine a day and time on which every member of the committee can meet. It's sort of like those logic problems on standardized tests: if the peas must be on the shelf above the corn but the beets can never abut the brussels sprouts, where should you put the celery?

Professor A teaches four classes back-to-back TTH and can meet only MWF, except for alternate Fridays. Professor B teaches all morning and Professor C teaches all afternoon, right up to the moment when Professor D has to leave campus to drive his offspring to hockey practice. No one wants to meet at lunchtime or early in the morning, and everyone wants to get off campus before 5, but there are only so many hours in the day so someone will have to bend. It's the same dilemma we face when scheduling classes: if the students had their way, all classes would be offered at 11 a.m., but we don't do that, do we?

Last week a committee chair sent out an Excel spreadsheet and invited committee members to block out the times when they definitely could not meet. The result was a nearly black spreadsheet with one open hour glowing cheerfully in the lower left corner, so that's when the chair scheduled the meeting. The next day he received an e-mail message from a faculty member senior enough to know better: "I know I said I could meet at that time," he wrote, "but I was an idiot."

Back to the drawing board. I say toss that committee member in the bin with the brussels sprouts and if he doesn't like it, let him eat corn.