Faculty senate approves 2010-'11 academic calendar

By Josh Rutenberg     9/11/08 7:00pm

After nearly a year of deliberation, the Faculty Senate approved an academic calendar for 2010-'11 at its meeting last Wednesday. The new calendar, which is based on a matrix calendar system, will include several changes to the current calendar, such as an extended four-week winter break period and a common finals period for seniors and non seniors.The Faculty Senate, a group composed of 30 faculty members from all university departments, devised the new calendar on the same matrix system used for this year's calendar. Such a system will allow the senate to project future Academic Calendars indefinitely. The previous system for calendars often led to errors and had to be redone each year.

The calendar for 2010-'11 resolves a number of past issues, such as start dates for classes, by beginning events on Mondays. It also allows for a common final exam period for both graduating and non-graduating students while still enabling the registrar to turn in senior grades in by the graduation deadline.

Previously, seniors had an exam period separate from the rest of the undergraduate student body so that grades could be calculated by graduation. Additionally, every other year, graduation will be pushed back a week.

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One of the main goals of the new system also includes extending the three-week winter break to four weeks. Because of this extension, Orientation Week will begin one week earlier than in previous years.

Lovett College freshman Lynn Pauls said she is gladly anticipating the extended winter break.

"A couple of days can make a big difference," Pauls said. "It's a nice time to cool down."

Lovett freshman Xavier Oberti said he sees the extended winter break as a mixed bag.

"A longer winter break gives you more time to decompress from school, but you get out of the academic mindset," Oberti said.

Last November, the Student Association conducted a poll of 619 students about the proposed Academic Calendar changes to help guide the Faculty Senate in voting on potential calendar changes. When asked if they were willing to return to school earlier from Winter Break in order to have a common final exam period, 96 percent of the students polled said they would not approve of such a change.

74 percent of polled students also said they would be willing to resume classes a week earlier if, in return, winter break were extended an additional week.

In addition to lengthening winter break and pushing back the first day of classes, the Faculty Senate had debated whether Rice should do away with the two-day spring recess. Due to its placement in the middle of the spring semester classes, it conflicted with many science courses that had labs scheduled during that period, Harter said.

"Faculty would often require students to come in [during the break] anyway," Harter said. "We met with both students and faculty, and determined we would allow classes to tell their students in advance if they would need to come in during those days."

According to the SA poll, 92 percent of students were not willing to give up spring recess to accommodate for a common final exam period. Since these classes were only occasionally taken by students, Harter and the senate believed students would be willing to make this compromise.

Lovett senior Ben Ellington said he is glad students are retaining spring recess.

"Second semester is never easy, and spring break is much needed," Ellington said.

Oberti said he agreed.

"Spring Break is the one chance to get away and be crazy."

The 2010-'11 academic calendar can be found online at http://registrar.rice.edu/calendars.aspx.

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