Transmittal FORM

 

DATE:               February 10, 2009

 

TO:                     EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

 

FROM:               Bob Buckley, Chair

                           Academic Policies Committee

 

ISSUE/ITEM:    Proposed Academic Calendars for the 2010-11 and 2011-12

 

 

BACKGROUND.  Every two years the Faculty Senate is required to recommend to the President academic calendars for the following two academic years.  Larry Glassmire, Director of Special Programs and Enrollment Analysis prepared the proposed calendar of events for the summer, fall and spring terms which matches those in the current 2008-09 and 2009-10 calendars. The proposed calendars were reviewed and amended by the Committee. 

 

The Committee amendment and recommendation is to move spring break to the middle of the spring term (beginning at the end of the 8th week of the term).  This would be a change from the current calendars which has spring break occurring in the 9th week, which includes the Cézar Chávez holiday. 

 

This change would affect those programs with lecture and multiple labs scheduled throughout the week and would result in one or more labs being out of sync. The Committee, however, agreed that moving the spring break to mid-semester and allowing Cesar Chavez holiday to stand alone was more beneficial to both students and faculty overall.  This change would also result in reducing the number of instruction days in the spring semester by one, although the number of days in the spring semester would be 3 days longer.

 

In addition, the Committee did consider extending the Thanksgiving Holiday to include the entire week.  This would require adding an additional week to the fall semester and, as a result, a shortening of the summer session (or elimination of the Intercession). 

 

The Committee agreed that the potential impacts of such a change would need to be thoroughly analyzed before such a change could be implemented.  Substantial amount of time would be required to conduct a thorough analysis, which would necessarily include close consultation with colleges and departments.  To delay recommendation of the 2-year calendar until this work was done would undoubtedly result in approving the 2-year calendars beyond the date at which the calendars must be “posted”. 

 

The Committee does recommend that a task force be established to thoroughly analyze the impacts associated with a one week Thanksgiving Break, and that the task force findings be presented to the Academic Policies Committee at the start of the 2010-11 academic year for consideration in recommending the 2012-13 and 2013-14 calendars.