University calendar reform still out of reach

Though consensus on academic calendar reform at the University is hard to come by, Harvard has already finalized its revamped calendar, leaving Princeton the only school in the Ivy League to hold fall term exams after winter break.

University administrators tabled calendar reform last November after circulating a survey asking students to choose one of several calendar options. The majority of Princeton undergraduates, however, still favor moving fall term exams to before the break. In an unscientific survey recently administered by The Daily Princetonian, roughly 60 percent favored moving fall exams to before winter break, with 37 percent of respondents “strongly” agreeing with the proposal.

"It makes absolutely NO sense for Princeton to have its fall exams after Christmas, when EVERY OTHER school in the country does the opposite," one junior wrote in response to the survey.

In a similar survey sent to faculty, roughly 50 percent of respondents agreed with moving fall term exams. Among all respondents, 34 percent “strongly” agreed.

"We can say that having exams after break and having a five- to six-week interruption between the last lecture and the final exam is not a great system," chemistry professor Michael Hecht said. "Most universities, including many of our sister universities, have realized that that schedule has problems."

Though she recognized the popular support for moving fall term exams to before winter break, Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel said in an e-mail that such a change would require a number of less popular changes. These changes include starting school before Labor Day, eliminating Fall Break or ending fall exams right before Christmas Eve, she noted.

Sixty-two percent of student survey respondents "strongly" or "somewhat" agreed that the school year should begin earlier than it currently does. Only about 23 percent, however, favored eliminating Fall Break and instead extending Thanksgiving Break to a full week.

University culture

The Committee on the Course of Study, chaired by Malkiel, began its detailed investigation of academic calendar reform in fall 2005. After soliciting opinions from undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and administrators, the Committee determined that in the absence of a consensus, no revisions can currently be implemented.

"We need to let the calendar question sit for a while; there is general exhaustion on this subject, after our intense two-year efforts in Course of Study," Malkiel said. "[T]here is no clear path forward around which we could build a faculty consensus for change, which we would require in order to make change happen," she added.

Former USG president Rob Biederman ’08 said that the failure to reach a consensus on last year's proposal may have been due to the method used to obtain feedback.

"I think one of the big mistakes on both the part of the administration and the USG may have been to present people with calendars to choose from instead of just saying to people ‘what do you think of A,B,C, D,’ ” he said. "It would be better to construct a calendar based on individual items [to change]."

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Academic calendar reform at Harvard, unlike Malkiel's plan for Princeton, occurred without a clear consensus. Last June, interim president Derek Bok announced that final exams will occur before winter break. Additionally, Harvard's new calendar gives a uniform academic schedule for all 11 of its faculties and includes a three-week "January term" between the fall and spring semesters.

Harvard professor and former Chair of the Committee on Calendar Reform Sidney Verba GS ’55 said that calendar revision was particularly difficult because of Harvard's numerous graduate schools.

"Harvard's organizational structure is very confederal; that is, each of the schools is semi-independent and one of the big problems at Harvard was that the schools had different calendars," he said. Verba earned his undergraduate degree at Harvard before receiving an MPA from the Wilson School and a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton.

Nevertheless, Verba said, the numerous constituencies and differences in opinion may have facilitated Harvard's academic calendar reform.

"In some odd way, because [Harvard] is decentralized, it was decided early on — and people didn't argue about this — that [calendar reform] had to be a decision by a central administration, so no one suggested that we have an up or down vote in each of the 11 different faculties," Verba said.

Princeton's cohesive structure, on the other hand, suggests that it would presumably have an easier time reaching a consensus because it has fewer parties to please, Verba said, noting its scarcity of professional schools and smaller student and faculty populations.

"I think Princeton is a simple little village compared with Harvard," he said.

Yet some doubt that Princetonians can reach agreement on every aspect of calendar reform. "I think that it would be practically impossible for a consensus to be reached because everyone has their own motivations," Matthew Decker ’08 said. "Too many people phrase it in personal terms. But the fact that we're the only school that [holds exams after winter break] shows that it's not working for us, and I think it's something that needs to be moved forward."

Despite the lack of consensus, Decker added, policy can still change. Referring to grade deflation, Decker said, "there's not a single student who didn't have a problem with that and it still happened. Princeton University, while catering to undergrads, is not necessarily run by undergrads."

Though some students will likely resist any change, Decker said, "I don't think the calendar change would be that terrible."

Biederman agreed that student opinion toward the academic calendar is "very divided." He added, however, that "until there's a consensus that we want exams before Christmas, it shouldn't be moved."

"Consensus" would mean a "significant majority," he explained.

"I would recommend caution in making the changes based on perceived student opinion rather than actual student opinion," he said.

Divided opinions

Though they were able to contribute input, the faculty at Harvard never voted on the proposed calendar. If calendar reform were to happen at Princeton, this would not be the case.

"What students think is certainly important, but it's the faculty who will be voting, so the views of the faculty will necessarily weigh more heavily," Malkiel said.

There is no consensus, however, among Princeton's faculty. Despite support for moving fall exams, some departments favor the current calendar.

"The current schedule is the only solution to be able to balance BOTH teaching and research in my field," one professor in the Program in Theater and Dance commented in response to the survey.

Hecht acknowledged that there is certainly disagreement among the faculty at Princeton, but said he believes that these disagreements are not insurmountable. "Placing the fall exam period closer to the end of classes is a key goal. To achieve this goal will require rearranging other parts of a complex academic schedule and may require compromises on other aspects of the schedule," he said.

"I think it can be reconciled because almost every other university in the country has reconciled the issue," Hecht said.

Overcoming dissent

During the calendar reform process, Harvard faced opposition to changing tradition, and a strong undercurrent against change is present at Princeton as well. As a graduate student at Princeton, Verba said, he got the impression "that the inertia of tradition was even greater at Princeton than it was at Harvard."

Still, the desire for change can be powerful. Harvard's student government, the Undergraduate Council (UC), led by then-president senior Ryan Peterson and then-vice president junior Matthew Sundquist, began the campaign to reform the calendar in early 2007. Sundquist is now the UC president.

Over the course of the spring semester, the UC met with Harvard administrators and faculty, contacted the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, and aggressively collected extensive data.

After constructing a new calendar, the UC polled about 50 percent of its students on whether they liked the plan through mass e-mails and door-to-door visits. In the end, 84 percent of students voted in favor of the proposed calendar.

The UC presented the results of the referendum in a 26-page report to Harvard administrators. The report advanced arguments on the grounds that the plan improves student mental health, lowers campus energy use, gives international students better travel options and allows athletic teams to schedule playoffs in January.

Ultimately, Bok approved the change, and the new calendar will take effect for the 2009-10 school year.