Academic Calendar Update #2

[James Gallicchio]

Hi again everyone,

I'm back to give another update (or more accurately a non-update) on the
feedback you all have shared on the 2021-22 Academic Calendar.*  I have not
gotten anywhere in discussion with the university.*  As you all know, the
longer this drags on without movement, the less likely the calendar is to
change, and I am quickly becoming impatient.

I don't want to be the place where your feedback came to die. *So here's
what you can do to help:*

   - *Talk to your professors.* Before you fill out FCEs, ask your
   professors to reflect on this semester:
   - *What went well?*
      - *What went wrong?*
      - *Are they making plans now for how to better handle another short
      semester?*
   Take their answers into consideration when you fill out FCEs :-)


   - *Share the original form with your friends*, especially those outside
   SCS and CIT:
   https://forms.gle/eUZvCSvZvFV2vB4C8
   We have nearly 400 responses, but only around 100 from outside SCS and
   CIT students. Let's try to get better representation across all schools.

And here are some action items to hold me accountable for:

   - By this weekend, I plan to have *another update* for you all. It will
   either contain a substantive progress update, *OR* will ask you all to
   send your thoughts to a certain administrator's inbox.  Hoping for the
   former, of course.


   - I am continuing to *collect broader student input*. The form will be
   featured on this Friday's issue of *The Piper*, and I will look for
   other highly visible places to share it.


Lastly, I want to share some of your comments on the length of the academic
semester that I found particularly helpful:


*"Fewer weeks inevitably means less material, and I for one want to learn
as much as I possibly can."*

*"It's just disappointing to hear that a professor has to cut out material
that I could be learning if we simply we had one more week of classes."*

*"If changed to 14 weeks, you have to REQUIRE (not just recommend, require)
courses to restructure to reduce the amount of overall content they are
teaching. We cannot have courses simply add to their already high workloads
by attempting to cram 15 weeks of material into 14 weeks."*

*"I don't want my classes to go on longer. I want to travel and see my
family and friends. I want to take long breaks or long internships. I want
to be able to decide to do other stuff and take on personal projects. It's
not like the argument is for or against a long or short semester. A week is
a week is a week. You're not losing out on anything significant by
shortening it; but you are giving a lot of flexibility. [...] An extra week
over break means I can do an internship and still have enough time to
travel back home and see my parents this year."*

*"Many people are arguing that we can cut down on the week's worth of
'fluff' that many courses have. However, I anticipate that we'll somehow
still end up with a week of 'fluff' if we cut down to 14 weeks. We *will*
lose a week of content by shortening the semester by a week."*

*"[A shorter semester] reduces student's access to organizations. As a
student org president, it will be very challenging with a shorter semester
to finish our projects, especially if students are also overworked due to
the shorter semester already. Students will get less time with friends,
social orgs, and the clubs they belong to."*

Thank you all again for sharing your voices, and for staying invested in
this. As always, don't hesitate to email me if you have comments,
questions, or concerns.

Best,
James Gallicchio

--
SCS Senator, Class of 2023
Academic Affairs Committee
Communications Committee


P.S.  For those of you that were not around for the first update, I've
included it below -- it has some basic summary statistics which may be
interesting to you.

On Mon, Apr 5, 2021 at 9:16 PM James Gallicchio <jgallicc at andrew.cmu.edu>
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Thank you again for taking the time to share your thoughts on the academic
> calendar. Here's a quick summary of some preliminary results:
>
>    - ~75% feel this semester is *too short*
>    - ~80% are *not* in favor of 14wk semesters in a regular year
>    - ~70% would *prefer a short winter break* over shorter semesters, but
>    this is particularly difficult for international students
>    - No consensus on whether to shorten fall semesters in order to fit a
>    week-long mid-semester break
>
> We are still collecting responses, *especially from MCS, Dietrich, CFA,
> and Tepper students*, so please share the form with any friends you may
> have in those schools: https://forms.gle/MBAQFArEV4LUPhRg7
>
> Right now, we're exploring the possibility of *compressing finals week*
> next semester. Many staff, in particular advisors, ended up having to work
> through Christmas because of the late end to the semester. So if we can cut
> a few days from finals week, the 15wk semester is a bit more amenable. A
> solid proposal is still being worked out, but we suspect it would include:
>
>    - Shorter (2hr) exam slots
>    - Some exams on the weekend
>    - Encouraging courses to either not have timed final exams or to give
>    students choice/flexibility around when to take an assessment during finals
>    week
>
> Once we have a hard proposal, we'll reach out to you all for more
> feedback. In the meantime, if you have particularly strong concerns about
> this, please email me at jgal at cmu.edu with something like "Compressed
> Final Schedule" in the subject.
>
> Thanks!
> James Gallicchio
>
> --
> SCS Senator, Class of 2023
> Academic Affairs Committee
> Communications Committee
>
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