Your Monthly Guide to Smarter Scheduling
September 2026
Is it Fall Yet?
As the fall semester settles into full swing, classroom scheduling activity continues across campus. It's still hot out, but we are hoping for cooler weather to complement our pumpkin spice lattes any day now! This month's newsletter highlights important deadlines, final exam updates, scheduling reminders, and resources to support your course, event, and classroom planning needs throughout the semester. Thank you for your continued partnership in helping ensure a smooth and successful academic experience for students, faculty, and staff.
If you are not receiving the newsletter by email but would like to, please contact classrooms@uiowa.edu to be added.
Highlights
- Dates and Deadlines
- Virtual Drop-In Hours
- Final Exam Faculty Review Period
- New! University Conference Spaces
- Spring 2027 Planner Review Period
- MAUI Exams Report
- New HSAB and DB UCRs
Upcoming Dates and Deadlines
Refer to the Classroom Scheduling Task List for more dates and details on monthly recurring tasks, organized according to the course and event scheduling timeline, along with helpful resources to support your work.
Fall 2026
- 9/11-9/16/26
Final exam faculty review period - 9/21/26
Final exam schedule published
Spring 2027
- 9/14-9/27/26
Planner review period - 9/28/26
MyUI course offerings available - 9/28/26
Evening midterm exam needs open
Summer 2027
- 8/4-9/13/26
Planner closed to editing - 9/14-9/27/26
Planner review period - 9/28/26
MyUI course offerings available
Upcoming Classroom Scheduling Virtual Drop-In Hours
Classroom Scheduling is excited to offer virtual drop-in sessions for department administrators and other campus partners. These informal sessions are intended to provide an opportunity to connect with our team, ask questions, and discuss anything related to academic and event scheduling, exam scheduling, policies, procedures, and university classrooms, and attendees can drop in and out as their schedule allows. Whether you have a specific question, would like guidance on a process, or just want to meet us, we invite you to join us!
Policy and Procedure Spotlight
Final Exam Faculty Review Period
The final exam faculty review period will begin on Friday, Sept. 11 through Wednesday, Sept. 16. The faculty review period allows primary instructors or ADAs to add or remove final exam assignments.
Please note:
The Office of the Registrar has made every effort to meet instructors’ final exam assignment requests and accommodate the exam needs communicated to us. Exam assignments have been consolidated into as few classrooms as reasonably possible, and we have made every effort to minimize morning and evening exam assignments. However, not all requests can be accommodated due to excessive student conflicts and limited classroom availability.
Requests Made After Publication
Requests made after the official schedule is published will require written approval from the chair/DEO and the dean of the department. All requests must include curricular justification.
New! University Conference Spaces
University Conference Spaces (UCS) are shared conference rooms for UI Faculty and Staff intended to support valuable university collaboration, planning, meetings, training, and day-to-day operations. University Conference Spaces are centrally managed by the Office of the Registrar, Classroom Scheduling.
Rooms should be reserved through O365, the university’s approved scheduling system for conference rooms, and assigned based on priority and availability. Users are responsible for selecting appropriately sized rooms, cancelling unused reservations, and returning spaces to their original condition. The university reserves the right to reassign spaces administratively to solve space issues.
Current available spaces:
2522 HSAB
Scheduling Insights
Planner Review Period
The two-week Planner review period for spring 2027 and summer 2027 section offerings is Sept. 14–27. This time is for departments to check assigned classrooms and submit any change requests prior to showing in MyUI on Sept. 28. Changes requested after this review period will require justification of how the change benefits students as they will be building their schedules around the times and locations of the courses published in MyUI.
Our team reviews over 1,000 changes during this two week window each semester. We appreciate your patience as we work through your requests.
Reports and Reminders
REPORTS:0101
The MAUI Exams by Session and Type with Conflicts report is a Data Warehouse report that provides a list of exams between the selected times of day for session and exam type chosen. Users are able to view direct conflicts for students with other exams or courses based on current enrollments. This report only displays direct conflict information and does not display conflicts for more than two exams in one day.
This report can help instructors understand how many students have direct conflicts with evening midterm exams throughout the semester, allowing them to plan make-up exams accordingly.
Tips and Tricks
University Classroom Search Tool
Students and instructors can use the Find a University Classroom tool on the University Classroom website to view personalized pages for each of our 335 unique university classroom spaces. Each page features photos, room type and capacity, furniture and technology details, accessibility notes, today’s schedule, and a campus map to help users find their way.
It’s a great resource for students and instructors who want to check out their assigned classrooms before the semester begins or to quickly see what spaces are available on a given day.
Help Shape Future Classroom Scheduling Newsletters
Have an idea, suggestion, or classroom scheduling success story to share? We'd love to hear it! Complete our brief survey to tell us what you'd like to see in future newsletters, including topics, reports, questions, and tips that would be helpful to you and your department.
Facilities & Tech Updates
Health Sciences Academic Building
Ten new classrooms were added to the university classroom pool this summer when the second phase of the Health Sciences Academic Building construction was completed, bringing a total of 14 UCRs to the building. The 10 new university classrooms range in size from a 21 seat multi-purpose classroom with tablet arm chairs up to a 181 seat lecture room with tables and chairs.
Dance Building
One new university classroom was added to campus with the opening of the newly renovated Dance Building (formerly Performing Arts Annex/Old Museum of Art), located on the west side of campus near Hancher Auditorium. 107 DB is a multi-purpose classroom with a capacity of 24.
The Dean's List
Pet of the Month
Meet Sarge, Chief Paw-fessor of Course Offerings and Classroom Scheduling and Mary's goodest boy. He's in a class of his own at fetching the perfect room assignment and sniffing out scheduling conflicts. After a brief lecture on efficiency, he recommended expanding the curriculum to include Advanced Fetch and Treat Management.
Do you have topic requests for future newsletters?
We would love to hear your suggestions!