At 01:14 PM 2/25/2005 -0500, James Russell wrote:

>Like Joe Dumas, I want to applaud the ad hoc committee on calendar
>revision for their hard work. They certainly cannot satisfy all
>constituencies. I am not sure, however, that I can support their
>proposal at this point. I have three concerns.
>
>First, the most controversial issue is what they committee proposes
>about summer school. I like the idea of two 5.5 week terms, but not
>the 11 week night course. That is simply too long. I doubt that many
>faculty and, more important, many students will want to commit that
>much time to a summer course. Moreover, summer school income is
>important for many faculty and reducing opportunities to teach is not
>a good thing. I suspect that they will be reduced significantly if we
>adopt the proposed changes.

I thought the proposed change stated that it would be up to each department
to whether or not they wished to utilize the 5.5 week terms, or the 11 week
terms?

>
>Second, I would rather not have that much time off between the fall
>and spring semesters.  Under the old system, exams for fall semester,
>2005 end on December 13; the revised  calendar would end them on the
>same date.  But classes for spring 2006 under the old system begin on
>January 9; under the new system, they would begin on January 17. What
>is the advantage in having the extra 8 days off at that time of year?
>

From a student advocate point of view, some students (particularly ones
with academic difficulties) would certainly benefit from an extra week to
conduct their university business. Under the current schedule, students
suspended from the university often are waiting on appeals to be reinstated
to school. Some are reinstated the 2nd week of the term, or even at the end
of the 2nd week. To put an at-risk student back in school after missing
such a significant portion of the semester is a recipe for failure.


Glad to see good work being done to help fix the current calendar. I'm sure
there is no perfect solution.


Jonathan Looney
Director - Student Financial Aid
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga