Timing isn't everything

To put it mildly, Princeton's academic calendar is idiosyncratic. Some students think our calendar, with its five annual recesses and a first semester that stretches from early September to late January, is a piece of tradition worth preserving. Others are irked by the stop-and-go feel of fall semester academics, the cloud of term papers and exams that hovers over students' heads during winter break and the concrete scheduling difficulties it creates for some students — notably those who intend to study abroad. Harvard is the only other Ivy League university that operates on the same schedule.

After leaving the issue untouched for well over a decade, administrators have decided to undertake a fresh evaluation of how well Princeton's academic calendar serves the University's educational purposes. When the Committee for the Course of Study opens discussion next fall, it will consider, among other things, semester length, the timing of exam period and whether fall break should coincide with Thanksgiving. Such dialogue is long overdue.

Sentimental attachments aside, some luxuries of Princeton's calendar are well worth keeping. Princeton's weeklong reading period and two-week exam period afford students the chance they need to digest everything the semester has thrown at them. This time makes for better papers and greater preparedness for exams, while sparing many Princeton students the sleepless torment synonymous with finals elsewhere. This three-week period deserves to be left intact, even if it means delaying the conclusion of fall semester until after winter vacation.

Other features of Princeton's calendar could certainly stand adjustment. At 12 weeks, the University's semesters are of the minimum length necessary for accreditation. The extension of each semester by even one week could improve students' academic experiences by pushing midterms further back into the semester, enabling courses to engage issues in greater depth and offsetting time effectively lost during the period of course "shopping" at the beginning of each semester.

As precious as Princeton's fall break is, few students take advantage of free time for the break's originally intended purpose of political campaign work — even during presidential election years. Princeton students might be better served by the combination of a long weekend in the early fall and a weeklong Thanksgiving break that allowed them adequate time for friends, family and travel.

What is most important is that next fall's discussion solicits a range of student opinion and takes this input seriously. Thanks to the fact that academic schedules are designed years in advance — effecting changes too far into the future to impact most current underclassmen — students will be uncommonly objective about both the strengths and shortcomings of Princeton's eccentric calendar.