Scheduling
Here is a list of issues related to the Scheduling Task Force
(click here to see a list of all issues for all task forces)
(click here to see a list of all task forces)
Issue 1
Issue 2
Issue 3
A Different Academic Calendar
Attached is a draft, academic calendar outline for introducing a four week winter term and removing the overlap between Maymester and first summer session. The draft is based on the calendar months August 2009 to August 2010.
Look at the draft with a critical eye. No doubt many improvements can be made. Hopefully, the draft will help us “put a face” on the idea of an online winter term as we evaluate its possible value.
Notes below relate to the “different” academic calendar attached.
Fall Semester
· Classes begin after August 15
· Retains fall break
· Fall classes end before Thanksgiving holidays
· There are a total of 66 class days (not including exam week)
· There are 40 MWF classes (2000 minutes) and 26 Tu-Th classes (1950 minutes)
Online Winter Term
· Length is 4 weeks or 20 days (not counting weekends or usual University holidays during Christmas/New Year period).
Spring Semester
· Orientation and late registration for spring semester overlap a few days with the ending of the winter term.
· Retains Martin Luther King holiday
· Retains spring break
· There are 65 total class days (not including exam week)
· There are 39 MWF classes (1950 minutes) and 26 Tu-Th classes (1950 minutes)
Maymester
· Three week term, no Saturday classes
· Removed overlap with first summer session
· Fourteen class days (2310 minutes) plus final exam day
First Summer Session
· Five week term, no Saturday classes
· Twenty four class days (2160 minutes) plus final exam
Second Summer Session
· Five week term, no Saturday classes
· Twenty four class days (2160 minutes) plus final exam day
Stan Smith
December 15, 2008
COMMENTS
As a professor in the sciences, where we have few to no online courses and many standard laboratory courses that are already jamming material into a 16 week term, what this would do is give our students even shorter versions of courses like genetics and biochemistry, and then whole terms (like the winter term) where they have little or nothing to take. I myself went to both an undergrad and a grad institution on a quad system, but they were 4 full terms, not "miniterms" and "miditerms", which is why they worked.