Students form no calendar consensus

The issue of academic year calendar reform is at an impasse for the time being, and students have mixed reactions.

The Committee on the Course of Study had considered revising the academic calendar, lengthening each semester by a week and altering break times to allow for a full week of vacation during Thanksgiving, among other changes. Ultimately, however, it was unable to reach a consensus on which proposed calendar plan to adopt.

While the "faculty did not favor any of the proposals," Chiara Nappi, a committee member and physics professor said, neither did students.

The USG conducted a student survey in March, which had more than 1,400 student responses. Students overwhelmingly favored the retention of Fall Break and the extension of reading period in January, USG president Rob Biederman '08 told The Daily Princetonian last spring.

For many students, the frequent breaks that interrupt the school year are much appreciated. "I love the fact that we have so many vacations," John Taylor '11 said.

Juan Candela '10 said that having so many breaks in the fall term is "great for freshmen because they're getting used to the rhythm of academic life."

Marina Di Bartolo '10 said she would prefer to have final exams before winter break, noting that her friends from other schools have more leisure time during their vacations than she does. Brooks Barron '11 also said he would like "to have more freedom during winter break."

Other students, like Alex Hewit '08, said they did not mind having finals after winter break. "We have plenty of time to study" over break and during the month of January, he said.

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Scheduling finals after winter break benefits those students with a strong work ethic.

"It pushes students to be much more autonomous" and to make academics a top priority, Candela said. "If students do not study at all during break, they will forget the stuff they learned in the fall. If they do study, they will be clear on the material."

Biederman said that on other questions, such as the addition of a 13th teaching week to the semester and a full week off at Thanksgiving, the survey responses "were not conclusive enough" because "there were questions about the wording on the questions and about voluntary response bias."

As Thanksgiving approaches, the possibility of a longer break in late November sounds attractive.

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"If I lived on the West Coast, then I would like to be able to go home for Thanksgiving," said Di Bartolo, who lives in Brooklyn.

Barron, who lives in Boulder, Colo., said "it would be nice to have more time for Thanksgiving," adding that it was annoying and stressful to have to fly cross-country to spend just four days at home.

But students seem unwilling to give up Fall Break for more days off around Thanksgiving. "I kind of like having a week for Fall Break and a few days for Thanksgiving," Hewit said.

Another point of contention was breaks during spring semester. For some, the timing of spring break was undesirable. "It would be nice if we had spring break to coincide with any other colleges," Allen Porter '10 said.

The University's calendar now distinguishes it from the rest of the Ivy League. Though Harvard used to have a schedule similar to Princeton's, then-interim president Derek Bok announced a revised academic calendar last June. Harvard's new schedule, which takes effect in the 2009-10 academic year, moves the start of classes to just after Labor Day and final exams to December and ends the academic year in May.