Survey finds 72 percent of undergraduates in favor of moving fall semester finals before winter break

A survey about the academic calendar, administered by the Undergraduate Student Government Academics Committee this past March, found that 72 percent of undergraduate respondents would prefer to have fall term finals before winter break, according to Academics Committee Chair Shannon Osaka ’17.

In March the Academics Committee partnered with the Graduate Student Government and the Office of the Dean of the College to compile and administer a survey to undergraduates, graduate students and faculty about the current academic calendar. The survey assessed respondents’ opinions on moving fall final exams to before winter break, having a three-week-long winter break with either one or two weeks of Intersession, lengthening the teaching period from 12 to 13 weeks and shortening the reading and finals period from three to two weeks.

According to Osaka, the survey had 2,525 undergraduate respondents, or 48 percent of the undergraduate student body, while 817 graduate students responded, representing 31 percent of the graduate student body. The survey revealed that 72 percent of undergraduate respondents and 76 percent of graduate student respondents wanted fall semester finals to be moved to before winter break, while the other 28 percent and 24 percent, respectively, voted that they would not prefer for finals to occur before the break.

Osaka added it was surprising that there was no trend specific to students in any discipline, even though humanities and engineering majors have different types of assessments and finals schedules.

According to the survey, a majority of undergraduate and graduate students would be willing to start classes earlier in the summer in order to move finals before winter break, Osaka noted.

The survey also asked students how they would feel about a three-week-long winter break followed by a one- or two-week-long Intersession period if finals were moved. Students could chose whether or not they wished to return for Intersession. Osaka said that the one-week-long Intersession was more popular among undergraduate and graduate students than the two-week-long period, which would come at the expense of one week of summer vacation.

These results have been compiled in a report to be shared with the student body on Friday, Osaka said.

"We have a wonderfully diverse and varied student body, who are pretty united in their opinions on the calendar,” Rebekah Massengill, associate dean in the Office of the Dean of the College, said of the high percentage of students who voted that they would prefer to have finals before winter break.

Jonathan Balkind, communications director of the Graduate Student Government, who worked with the Academics Committee, noted that the survey showed no significant difference between the preferences of graduate and undergraduate students, even across years and disciplines.

Osaka added that there was less support for the idea of a 13-week-long semester as opposed to the current 12-week-long schedule.

Balkind also explained that if the teaching period were extended to 13 weeks, reading and finals period would have to be shortened to two weeks, and depending on the new scheduling, students might have to take two final exams on the same day.

The survey also asked a series of questions about students’ mental health and the implications of the current academic calendar.

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Ramie Fathy ’16, former Academics Committee chair, said that there are many social implications of the survey.

Eighty-one percent of undergraduate respondents reported that the current placement of fall finals makes them feel stressed over winter break, while the other 19 percent disagreed. When asked whether having finals in January results in less time spent with family and friends over the break, 79 percent of undergraduate respondents agreed and 21 percent disagreed. Finally, 85 percent of undergraduate respondents said that they feel guilty or worry they will fall behind if they do not work during winter break, while the other 15 percent disagreed.

The survey also included a free response section where students could express additional opinions, he added. Balkind said he has done a preliminary programmatic analysis to assess which words were mentioned the most in the responses, and that there has been a high mention of the phrases “stress,” “mental health” and “my family.”

“I've read a few that were about how some people's homes are not conducive to them working over winter break, and they feel like that creates a stratification in what students are able to do, and that it might make things a little bit unfair sometimes," Osaka added. "There were some more things about feeling burnt out when trying to approach the spring after only an Intersession break."

In addition, the survey asked undergraduates whether having finals after winter break encourages them to procrastinate more than they would if finals were held in late December. Here, 74 percent of respondents agreed, while the other 26 percent disagreed. Only 28 percent of undergraduate respondents said that they would not be able to finish their fall term final projects and papers without the winter break before finals period, whereas the other 72 percent did not express that sentiment.

Undergraduate students were relatively split on the idea that finals after winter break gives them extra time — 49 percent agreed that they appreciate having the extra time over winter break to prepare for end-of-term work, while 51 percent disagreed. Fifty-two percent of undergraduate respondents reported that the placement of fall term exams allows them to put extra effort into studying, as opposed to the 48 percent of respondents who felt that this is not the case.

Balkind explained that as not every graduate student is taking classes, they have more flexibility to schedule internships or research. However, some graduate students have responsibilities as residential graduate student advisors or assistant instructors, so a calendar change would have an impact on these students especially.

The survey found that for the majority of students who are AIs, the current academic calendar requires them to work over winter break and Intersession in a typical year, and that their commitments as an AI would be lessened during winter break if fall finals were held in December. However, Balkind noted that a significant portion of respondents — approximately 40 percent — were not AIs.

The Academics Committee will present these findings to the General Education Task Force, according to Osaka. She said that the General Education Task Force will release a recommendation to be reviewed by the Board of Trustees and University President Christopher Eisgruber '83, and, depending on the proposal’s reception, it could move back to faculty committees for further discussion before an all-faculty vote.

“The Committee on Classrooms and Schedule would be the committee that would propose an alternate calendar that could then ultimately move to an all-faculty vote," Osaka explained.

Fathy said he believes that such a meeting could be highly attended by faculty.

Massengill said she believes the Task Force will issue its official recommendations at some point in the fall. Depending on what the Task Force recommends and if there are implications for the academic calendar, the recommendations would be taken up by the Committee on Classrooms and Schedule and potentially by the Committee on Course of Study as well, she added.

"I would emphasize that the question about the academic calendar is part of a very large set of questions that were put before the General Education Task Force,” Massengill said, adding that a final recommendation would then be taken to the faculty for a vote.

Fathy noted that it was made clear in the emails to students including the survey that decisions about whether or not to recommend calendar changes will be driven solely by how academics are affected.

"There's a sentence that [says], ‘Any changes to the calendar will be motivated by the academic benefits,’ so that's what we tried to highlight in this summary,” he explained.

However, Fathy said he believes that it is important to remember the factors beyond academics that shape students’ interaction with the schedule.

“I think that they may not explicitly consider these social implications or the student experience outside of academics, but I do think that it's an important factor," he noted.

Fathy added that in the committee’s presentation to the General Education Task Force, it emphasized the idea that students' extracurricular experiences, including their mental health, time to reflect and personal interests, are vital to their academic success and stamina.