Don’t Delay Calendar Reform

At long last the time seems ripe for Harvard to reform its archaic calendar, a change that cannot come a year too soon. The roadblocks that have stood in the way of this change in the past—most notably an ongoing curricular review which is finally coming to a conclusion—are being lifted. There is no longer any reason for delay.

Harvard is one of a few universities that drag students back to campus after a brief winter break to write term papers and take exams. It’s a cruel system that denies Harvard students a full or relaxing winter break and makes Cantabs the butt of many jokes from their friends who are returning home for real winter breaks.

Fortunately, the calendar is a problem that can be easily fixed. By moving the entire calendar up two weeks and shortening exam periods, the College would not lose any days of instruction and Harvard’s generous reading period would be maintained.

Calendar reform certainly seems like a win-win situation, and many groups have recognized it as such. In a position paper released last week, the Undergraduate Council (UC) demonstrated the considerable student support for the proposal and laid out a number of additional reasons to change the calendar (if one doesn’t find a true break in January compelling enough). As the UC points out, a reformed calendar would relieve stress and improve mental and physical health, give students time to see friends and family, mesh better with NCAA calendars for athletes, better fit the schedules of international programs for students wishing to travel abroad, ease the burden of flying home for international students, and save Harvard a boatload in energy and staffing costs.

A reformed calendar would also put all of Harvard’s schools on the same schedule. The opportunities for increased inter-faculty coordination and cooperation was one of the main reasons that an inter-faculty committee led by Pforzheimer University Professor Sidney Verba ’53 in 2004 endorsed calendar reform by an 18 to 1 margin. Undergraduates would also benefit from the added coordination: cross-registration at other Harvard schools would be less of a burden, and it would be easier for members of other faculties to teach courses at the College.

That’s not to say there is no opposition to calendar reform. Many faculty members like the current calendar. Some point out that it’s nice to have a large chunk of time in January to research or travel without having to teach. Others like that they can get their kids settled in school before they have to teach. And still others point out that the weather on Cape Cod during the first few weeks of September simply cannot be beat.

While we recognize these concerns, we feel that they are dwarfed by the benefits of a changed calendar. Faculty will still be teaching the same number of days each year, and their uninterrupted research time would simply be moved to a different part of the year.

Calendar reform has been put on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ back burner for the past several years, thanks primarily to the urgency of the Harvard College Curricular Review. After all, the calendar should fit the curriculum, not vice-versa. But now the broad brushstrokes of the curricular review have been nearly finalized and the faculty is simply working out the details before a final vote. It thus makes sense to return to the issue of the calendar at this time, which is why the UC has begun its push for calendar reform in the past week.

While the ultimate authority to change the calendar rests with the President and the Corporation, the support of the various faculties will be vital in securing a final decision. To that end we hope that the Faculty will take up the issue of calendar reform as soon as possible, hopefully soon enough that the next January reading period will also be the last.