Faculty Shoots Down Plan for Broad Calendar Reform

When the Undergraduate Council proposed to move fall-term exams before winter recess, the Faculty Council voted unanimously to scrap the plan.

The main reason why the plan--approved almost unanimously by the council and endorsed by Registrar Georgene R. Herschbach-was shot down? Faculty members thought the new calendar's benefits for the students contradicted their own needs.

In fact, one member said the new calendar would be "inhumane" to professor with hectic lives.

For students, the new calendar would have started classes the day after Labor Day. December at Harvard would have consisted mostly of reading period and exams and students would have enjoyed a five week winter break lasting through most of January.

Students wanted a more relaxed vacation and a school year that ended at roughly the same time as other colleges.

But for the Faculty, the new calendar would have forced them to spend their vacations grading final papers and exams and preparing for their second-semester courses.

A Popular Mandate

Although defeated in the past, the proposal to reform the calendar had the backing this time of most undergraduates, and Herschbach.

In a Harvard Political Union forum last march, Herschbach predicted that the College's schedule was likely to change perhaps in as few as two years.

She also pointed out that only 52 schools nationwide retained a traditional calendar with exams scheduled after winter break, while more than 3,600 have moved their exams before the vacation. In the Ivy League, only Princeton and Harvard still hold exams after winter break.

A 1993 Undergraduate Council referendum reported that 70 percent of the undergraduate population said they would prefer to take first semester exams before winter break.

In addition to having popular support, the calendar endured the lengthy deliberations of a reluctant Committee on Undergraduate Education.

Sean A. Becker '94, a former chair of the Undergraduate Council's academic affairs committee, said the council had worked diligently to accomodate faculty preferences and commencement, the date of which is determined by the University charter.

But that didn't convince the Faculty Council. "We all have quality of life issues to think about," said Professor of Sociology Theda Skocpol. "We all have to give and take, and this was all take and no give."

Faculty members consistently attributed their qualms about the revised calendar to their perception that it was primarily focused on the "comfort level" of students.

Dean for Undergraduate Education Lawrence Buell called the faculty's vote "quite decisive," and added that he did not think it would be productive for students to pursue the issue further in the near future.

Students were disappointed with the dismissal, calling professors "stubborn" and "selfish." But Secretary to the Faculty Council John B. Fox Jr. '59 says the issue never dies.

Harvard-Radcliffe Undergraduate Council