Big changes are coming to City College teachers this fall with a recently approved policy alteration.

Full-time faculty can soon be expected to be on campus a minimum of three days a week, after the Academic Senate agreed to change college policy.

Colette Brown, president of the associated student government, said that she thinks faculty teaching on campus should be required to be available a certain amount of days during the week.

“Teachers need to be accessible to students,” Brown said. “In my opinion, that is the whole reason for a college campus.”

The policy, BP7210, has not been reviewed since 2003.

The old language read that faculty members normally should be present four to five days a week, with a minimum of three days. The former part of the policy was removed to put more focus on the latter part in hopes of having the policy more enforced.

Academic Senate President Kimberly Monda said that part of the change is caused by the college’s block schedule, where the school shortened its semester from 18.5 weeks to 16.

Since the change to a block schedule, classes are now mostly offered Monday through Thursday, instead of five days a week.

“You wouldn’t normally be scheduled over five days no matter what,” Monda said. “There aren’t that many classes offered Monday, Wednesday, Friday, anymore.”

The policy has been discussed during five of the senate’s meetings throughout the semester, and the change of policy was decided on May 6.

“This is our process,” Monda said. “We really talk about things for a long time and try to look at all the angles.”

During the summer, the college will appoint a work group to explore how to address the online teaching aspect, something that is currently not included in the policy. Monda stated that since the policy was written 12 years ago, the work life of faculty has changed.

“We have these old policies that were written before we had such an online presence,” Monda said.

One of the concerns from faculty has been if members who teach 50 percent or more of their classes online still must follow the policy.

Brown said that she thinks it should be required for faculty who primarily teach online to provide some type of online offices hours.

“I think that they should have some sort of face-to-face interaction,” Brown said. “Even if that is over a computer screen.”

The college’s goal is to have a finished draft from the summer work group before the scheduled senate meeting on July 22, and to present the revised policy to faculty before the beginning of fall semester.

“Even though these things take time, it’s really worth taking the time and listening to everybody,” Monda said.

She added that faculty members currently have a consensus and want some flexibility in the three-day minimum, and clear policies for why and how that number would be reduced.

“I hope that we come up with something that the great majority is in favor of. I don’t expect 100 percent endorsement, that doesn’t happen in democracies,” Monda chuckled.