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In case you haven’t noticed, the summer intersession dates in the full-page advertisement in the last two issues of the Courier are causing confusion.

This is nothing new though, of course. With all of the rapid and hasty changes to the college’s fundamental calendar system, one must ask if they were properly planned.

At the Sept. 11 Academic Senate Town Hall, Assistant Superintendents and Senior Vice Presidents Robert Bell and Robert Miller actively took notes on concerns both students and faculty had with the new calendar.

Many faculty members complained there would not be enough time to schedule their classes with out the winter intersession. The administration explained there would be a discussion with the faculty on this issue. Many faculty members still wait for this discussion.

The spring and summer semesters will in fact have varied session lengths. Spring will be 16 weeks long, but will also have 12 – week classes along with eight-week classes. Summer semester is planned to be 12 weeks long with six-week sessions within it. This was not made clear to the public, but instead, the public was misinformed by the large ad in the Courier stating there will be two distinct summer sessions in 2013.

The number of sections determined for spring 2013 is based on the number of class sections from spring 2012. The issue with this is that these two semesters are structured very differently. How does the administration know if a spring semester with basically three sessions will be able to hold the same classes?

The 2010 – 2011 Calendar Committee, instead of the current Calendar Committee, developed the format for the spring 2013 semester. Because the current committee refused to create a calendar that would work without winter intersession, the administration chose to base its new calendar on older versions created by a different group, according to officials.

The multiple changes to the academic calendar along with conflicting information being put forth by various officials are causing consternation and confusion on campus. Some clarity is sorely needed, now.

 

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