A Local University Is Considering Changes to Its Class Structure

question 100

Essay

A local university is considering changes to its class structure in an effort to increase professor productivity. The old schedule had each professor teaching 5 classes per week, with each class meeting an hour per day on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Each class contained 20 students. The new schedule has each professor teaching only 3 classes, but each class meets daily for an hour. New classes contain 50 students.
a. Calculate the labour productivity for the initial situation (students/hour).
b. Calculate the labour productivity for the schedule change (students/hour).
c. Are there any ethical considerations that should be accounted for?
d. Suppose that each teacher also is required to have 2 hours of Office Hours each day he/she taught class. Is the schedule change a productivity increase?

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Definitions:

Fixed Manufacturing Overhead

Consists of the costs that do not vary with the level of production, such as rent, property taxes, and salaries of permanent employees in a manufacturing facility.

Cost Allocation

The process of identifying, aggregating, and assigning costs to cost objects such as products, services, or departments.

Insulating Allocations

An approach in budgeting where specific costs are assigned or isolated to individual departments or projects to prevent them from affecting others.

Direct Labor Cost

The expense associated with the labor time of workers directly involved in the production of goods or services.