Resolving the academic calendar: First steps

When students sat down with faculty senators at the Senate Education Committee meeting on Friday, April 16, the fight over the academic calendar had come to a stalemate.

Student senators, along with CCSC, ESC, and SGA, backed a plan that would start school before Labor Day twice every 10 years. Faculty senators were dead set against it, and proposed eliminating the Election Day holiday or holding finals on weekends or in January after winter break.

Even if any one of these changes were adopted, however, it was clear that due to schedules already being finalized, next year’s calendar would not change.
The battle lines were clearly drawn—and nobody wanted to give in.

And then—compromise. The four undergraduate schools already allowed students to move finals if they had three or more on one day, so why not expand that system? Why not change the policy to allow students to reschedule finals that fall on December 23rd?

The proposed resolution that followed—which will allow exactly that—will come before the full Senate plenary this Friday.

It is important to remember, however, that this is not the end, but the beginning—an important first step in addressing student concerns about the academic calendar.

In January, over 1,600 students attached their names to a petition that asked the Senate to either change the calendar or change the moving of tests policy.

“It is not acceptable for [international] students that exams continue until the day before Christmas Eve and thus must fly or travel on this holiday,” read the petition. “The university should recognize the importance of this time of year and make appropriate provisions for its students.”

The petition continues, “If the college feels it cannot officially change the calendar, then it must change its policy to accommodate students that this schedule affects.”

That is exactly what this resolution does—the Senate is changing University policies to accommodate students.

Organizers of the original petition have objected to this new policy, the exact one they lobbied for.

In an email to several senators, faculty, and administrators, students claimed this resolution fails to address the main concern of students who signed the petition.

They said the “resolution does not provide a list of situations and circumstances that will be deemed acceptable.”

The new policy, however, mandates the respective dean of student affairs offices to operate with a “strong presumption that the rescheduling request [would be] granted” .

In a sense, the burden of proof falls on the dean of students to explain why a request was denied, rather than the student having to present a grand, intricate case to explain why he or she needs exams rescheduled.

The email also claims some students may be too shy to ask to have finals rescheduled. However, we believe there’s no action the Senate can take to give people the self-confidence needed to submit a form.

One issue—not addressed by either the original petition or the later email, but important to student leaders—is the limited number of study days that accompany an academic calendar that ends on December 23rd.

Several undergraduate student leaders have claimed this will exacerbate the problem, giving students even less study time if they have to reschedule exams that fall on the 23rd.

There’s nothing in the resolution, however, that says rescheduled exams must fall before the 23rd, merely that it is one option available to students.

It’s important to remember that legislating is about making compromises. A number of things were clear: next year’s calendar wasn’t going to change, students didn’t want to lose fall break, and faculty wouldn’t start before Labor Day.

In this case, our priority was ensuring that students this year, not years down the road, could make it home in time for the holidays.

This isn’t the end of the conversation, but the beginning. The Education Committee also plans to submit a concurrent resolution that will require the Senate to reexamine this policy in the fall.

As student senators, we will continue to push and work toward settling the study-days issue and address further concerns as they arise.

This policy is a win for students. If it appears it isn’t working next winter, then we will work to fix it. This is only the first step in an important conversation.

The authors are The Student Affairs Committee of the University Senate..