PNCA Bell Schedule

Effective Fall 2024

A unified bell schedule and academic calendar are among the critical first steps toward realizing
the Strategic Plan’s vision for greater cross-university curricular engagement. Greater alignment
in the timing of course offerings will allow more students to take advantage of the array of
existing curricular offerings in Willamette’s Atkinson Graduate School of Management, College
of Arts and Sciences, College of Law, Pacific Northwest College of Art, and School of
Computing and Information Sciences, and will also facilitate future program development that
draws from across the University’s colleges and curricula.

The University’s unified bell schedule was launched in Academic Year 2023-2024, and emerged
from nearly two years of conversations and consultation with numerous campus stakeholders.
This Bell Schedule includes common start times for courses, as well as college- and
university-level “Common Hours” that are designed to facilitate meetings, co-curricular activities,
speakers, and events. College Common Hours are at the programming discretion of each
college or school, whereas University Common Hours should be preserved for University-level
committees, meetings, events, or other functions.

Please note that there are some program-specific deviations to the Academic Calendar, which
include the low-residency MFA programs in PNCA, program offerings at the Executive
Development Center, and inter- and winter-session courses for students in the JD program.
Individual instructors may also request to offer courses “off-schedule” due to the nature of the
course, instructor availability, or pedagogical reasons; these requests must be submitted in
Coursedog and approved by the relevant department chair and/or college or school level
scheduler before being reviewed by the Provost’s Office.