University of Virginia Library

Calendar Reform

From sweltering September to sweltering
June students and faculty work their way
through classes, labs, quizzes, examinations
and all of the physical and mental discomforts
that go along with them. No matter how
anti-academically oriented the undergraduate
might be at the University, he does taste at
some time during his "scholarly" career in
Charlottesville the excitement of an idea and
the joy of really learning. We wish to explode
the idea that sheer quantity of time will
induce more intellectually, enlightening
experiences for the hard to reach student.

We think that all those months of lectures
and notes oftentimes tend to deaden the
student's interest in a particular subject rather
than to stimulate it. The academic year is not
only too long, but needs a booster or two.
The college which has completely
restructured its calendar to accommodate it
to humanity is no longer the exception. The
University is long overdue for a major
calendar reform.

Almost everyone recognizes that a
different calendar would help to spark
students toward a greater commitment to
academics. The lengthy terms that we now
have beat both students and faculty to mental
and physical lethargy, especially during the
latter weeks of the Spring semester. The long,
laborious trail from September to the end of
snowy January just does not appeal to
students.

One might answer that school has never
been too much fun and that a certain amount
of pain must be endured for true learning. We
agree that there will always be considerable
labor involved in the learning process but that
the University should try to make that labor
appeal to the students. Within reason we
should strive to create conditions in which a
student will want to learn and faculty
member will want to teach.

The present calendar can be justly
criticized from many different angles and
should be completely scrapped. Two viable
alternatives to the present system are: 1) The
University of Pennsylvania calendar which
provides that the academic year commence in
mid-September with the examination period
before Christmas. The second term begins in
late January and ends in early May. 2) The
"Four-One-Four" plan, which is used by
Hollins and was recently adopted by Sweet
Briar, has two semesters of regular class study
and a middle period which is devoted to an
individual research project. The first term
examination period also occurs before the
Christmas holidays.

Certainly there are weaknesses in both of
these alternatives, such as the independent
research project which at many other schools
is little more than a nice vacation, but they
are small compared to those leveled at our
current calendar. Both of these calendars
would give the University a shorter, more
valuable academic year, and, with some
modifications, the second could give our
educational process just the shot that it needs
to really attract students to studies. Both
calendars would eliminate all of the problems
and inconveniences that go along with an
examination period after Christmas vacation.

Unfortunately we are stuck with the same,
outdated calendar for next year. All proposals
thus far have died because of the inability of
all of the schools in the University to agree to
any one major reform despite universal
recognition by members of the academic
community (including the Chairman of the
Calendar and Scheduling Committee who
begged for reforms as he sadly submitted next
year's calendar) that a change must be made.
Two committees which have talked about the
calendar in the past and who could provide
the push and plans for reforms are the
Calendar and Scheduling Committee and the
College Faculty's Committee on Curriculum
and Educational Policy. Both of these groups
should give the calendar question high
priority and start sounding out opinion of
their colleagues and their students all over the
University so that we can have a new
calendar one that is long overdue.