Committee Could Reshape Academic Year

The College’s anomalous academic calendar—replete with its late start and post-Christmas exams—could be up for a historic alteration.

Citing inconveniences caused by increasingly widespread cross-registration, Harvard administrators announced yesterday the creation of a committee charged with bringing in line the 10 separate calendars in effect across the University.

The Committee on Calendar Reform will be composed of members from all of the University’s faculties, two undergraduates and three graduate students, and will work in tandem with the College’s curricular review process.

The committee’s creation could mean the biggest change in a century to the College’s schedule, which differs from those of several other Harvard schools as well as most colleges nationwide.

Undergraduates are the last to register for classes, and take their exams while many professional students are already registering for spring classes.

Pforzheimer University Professor Sidney Verba ’53, who will chair the committee, said that moving exams is an option that will be considered.

“Whether it would involve exams before Christmas is one thing we would look into,” Verba said.

According to Secretary of the Faculty John B. Fox Jr. ’59, Harvard undergraduates have sat for post-Christmas exams since 1903.

But the University is bigger than any one of its parts, President Lawrence H. Summers is fond of saying, and the new scrutiny of calendars has sprung from this philosophy.

Summers proposed the committee at a retreat with the deans of all the schools this summer.

Committee members said that Summers and the deans hope that a greater consistency in calendars will make it easier for students to take advantage of the University’s vast resources. A press statement announcing the committee cited relieving widespread student frustration as a related aim.

It remains to be seen whether the end result will be a single University

calendar or simply a set of guidelines for exam and registration scheduling. Another possibility is a trimester system, like that of Stanford College.

“I don’t think there’s any prejudgment as to what the final result will be,” said Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71. “The idea is to try to consider all of us as parts of a whole.”

“The goal is to make it more possible for undergraduates to take advantage of first-class professional schools, which is impossible if the schedules don’t coordinate,” said Jones Professor of American Studies Lizabeth Cohen, a member of the new calendar committee. “The calendars don’t necessarily have to be exactly the same, the semesters just have to happen at the same time.”

Verba acknowledged that at a decentralized University, calendar standardization isn’t as simple as it sounds.

“We want to find out what the constraints might be of getting everybody on the same page,” Verba said. “There is no intrinsic value of having separate calendars, but each school has its reasons.”

According to Fox, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences has been discussing moving exams to before winter break on and off for the past twenty years.

Fox said the Faculty has traditionally been reluctant to change the current exam schedule because it thought it “better for students to have a long period of time to absorb and consider material.”

Verba said he has found his share of students who disagree.

“I have heard many arguments from my own students. They want to know why they can’t enjoy their breaks,” he said.

Those sentiments are likely to be represented on the calendar committee by the two College delegates, Undergraduate Council President Rohit Chopra ’04 said. The council will be responsible for the selection of the representatives.

Chopra said council members will be interested in protecting reading period and a summer vacation long enough for study-abroad and summer internships.

“I don’t want [a semester] that starts in early August,” Chopra said.

Several professors contacted yesterday also expressed openness to a change.

Morris Professor of Health Care Policy Richard G. Frank, who teaches General Education 186, “Introduction to Health Care Policy”—a popular course that draws from the Kennedy School of Government, the School of Public Health and the College—is one professor whose life could be simplified by a unified calendar.

“It would be easier to have one coordinated calendar, but it’s not a horrible burden,” Frank said.

Disjointed registration dates and exam schedules have meant that he has had to introduce his course twice and adjust finals times to meet the needs of his students, Frank said.

In addition to Cohen and Verba, the Committee on Calendar Reform will include Provost Steven E. Hyman, Travelstead Professor of Architecture George P. Baird, Thomas Professor of Divinity Harvey G. Cox, Maier Professor of Political Economy Benjamin M. Freidman, Wolfson Professor of Jewish Studies Jay M. Harris, Industrial Bank of Japan Professor of Finance Walter C. Kester, Professor of Education Daniel Koretz, Lecturer on Public Health Practice Leonard J. Marcus, Professor of Law Harry S. Martin, Stanton Professor of the First Amendment Frederick Schauer and Adams University Professor Christoph J. Wolff.

—Staff writer Ebonie D. Hazle can be reached at hazle@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Rebecca D. O’Brien can be reached at robrien@fas.harvard.edu.