Petersen Asks Corp. for Meeting

Undergraduate Council President Ryan A. Petersen ’08 took a bold step in his push for a revised academic calendar yesterday, demanding an audience with the University’s top governing board at its next scheduled meeting on April 30.

Petersen’s letter to the members of the Harvard Corporation, which comprises Interim President Derek C. Bok and six Fellows, comes after the UC’s staging of a student referendum on calendar change.

“As the FAS community considers the [calendar] proposal in the weeks and days ahead, the Corporation must meet with student representatives...so that the community may move forward,” Petersen wrote in his letter.

Petersen said last week that he believed a vote by the governing boards could serve to ratify a change in the calendar this year, even if the Faculty of the Arts and Sciences (FAS) does not have time to address the issue in its two remaining meetings because of its focus on completing the general education reforms.

In defense of his request yesterday, Petersen referenced the University-wide Statement on Rights and Responsibilities, a resolution passed by the Corporation and the 30-member Board of Overseers in 1970. The document stipulates that “it is the responsibility of officers of administration and instruction to be alert to the needs of the University community...and to respond promptly and in good faith...to widely expressed needs for change.”

Petersen’s letter cites the results of the referendum recently conducted by the UC, during which 2,914 students—constituting 43.4 percent of the undergraduate population and 84 percent of those voting—cast their lot in favor of a calendar configuration that would put fall exams before Christmas, lengthen winter break, and end the school year a week and a half earlier than at present.

Bok did not downplay the results of the referendum in an e-mailed statement to The Crimson a few days ago. He wrote that “the results will represent a significant factor in the minds of those who have ultimately to decide about this issue.”

Bok did, however, question his place in any decision-making to follow.

“Whether I can properly play a role in the waning weeks of an interim Presidency is not immediately clear to me,” Bok wrote. “But I will certainly seek counsel about the question and think hard about it myself.”

For her part, University President-elect Drew G. Faust told The Crimson in February that serious discussion of calendar reform will have to wait for the completion of General Education reforms.

University Spokesman John D. Longbrake had no response from the Corporation when contacted about Petersen’s letter late last night.

—Laurence H. M. Holland contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Claire M. Guehenno contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Christian B. Flow can be reached at cflow@fas.harvard.edu.