In the past, waiting in long lines at testing centers during Finals Week was as much a right of passage at Iowa State as kissing under the Campanile or singing “Sweet Caroline” at a football game.

The Provost Office, in collaboration with the Government of the Student Body, the testing center staff and individual colleges, will open a total of eight testing centers with extended hours during Finals Week. Administrators expect between 13,000 and 18,000 tests to be administered next week.

Opening new testing centers wasn’t a quick fix. The team tasked with coordinating the opening of the new centers also needed to make sure students were aware of the changes.

“It’s not very often when you can see a problem and get people together relatively quickly and try and solve a problem,” said Rob Schweers, director of communications for the office of the senior vice president and provost. “We can’t promise that there won’t be a single line ever at the testing centers over the course of this Finals Week, but we expect that they are going to be a lot better.”

Four testing centers were opened last spring for finals, but, despite the effort, lines were still long. The number of seats has more than doubled for this fall, going from 219 to 448 seats.

In addition to these new centers, hours will be extended in all of the centers. During Finals Week, the testing centers will open at 7:30 a.m. and will remain open until 10 p.m., except on Friday, when they will close at 5 p.m.

The testing centers will also be open Dec. 13 from noon to 6 p.m. and Dec. 14 from noon to 10 p.m.

“In order for these changes to work we need students to help,” said Jonathan Wickert, senior vice president and provost. “Students need to use all the new testing centers. If everyone just goes to Carver or Gilman, you will be waiting in a line.”

Students are strongly encouraged to take their tests early in the week and early in the day. The first 100 students who check in before 10 a.m. at each testing center on each day will receive a $2.50 ISU Dining gift card. The university will provide 4,000 gift cards over the span of Finals Week. 

The testing centers have also hired an additional 150 students. These workers will also be in the halls helping students move to less crowded testing centers.

Students are encouraged to check the lines before choosing a testing center by utilizing the webcams on the website testcenter.iastate.edu as well as the Twitter account @ISUTestCenter. There is also a Facebook page that students can get updates called “ISU Testing Center”.

Melissa Gofforth, GSB director of academic affairs and senior in management and marketing, noticed that a large number students were complaining about long wait times on social media and knew it was time for changes to be made.

“There was a time when a lot of the yaks [on social media platform Yik Yak] were all about the testing center line waits,” Gofforth said. “I shared that with the provost’s team to share the reality of what students are saying and the rawness of their posts.”

The task of expanding the testing centers took a team that was dedicated to solving the problem for the future, not just Finals Week. 

Wickert said there are plans to open a third permanent testing center so lines will be a thing of the past.

“We’re always looking for ways to improve and GSB did a great job identifying that the testing centers were a problem,” Wickert said. “I think we’ve come up with a good plan. We’re thinking beyond Finals Week. What all students will see is significant improvement in the spring semester.”

The team has also discussed alleviating wait times by scheduling test times in the testing centers for the spring just like they are scheduled for students who take their finals in classrooms.

“If we could schedule the final exams in the testing center like you do other final exams, [lines] would not be an issue,” said Arne Hallam, associate dean of finance and operations. “Because people can pick whenever works best for them personally, everybody seems to show up during the middle of the week in the middle of the day.”

The team has a busy month ahead of them as they will be working to put in place more testing center policies for the spring semester.

“Our task in the next month is to put together some policies that we can implement for next semester,” said Tom Brumm, ISU Testing Center director. “We’ve got to put some things in place so we can tell instructors what they should put in the syllabus, like if their final exam would be scheduled in the testing center.”

The team is anticipating a successful Finals Week and is prepared to keep it that way for years to come.

“I was just extremely impressed with the collaboration with everyone,” Gofforth said. “The provost’s office has been so gung ho on getting this fixed and doing it the right way. I’m really positive this Finals Week is going to go really well.”