Far from sealing the fate of the academic calendar, Friday’s University Senate plenary meeting made it apparent that negotiations are only just beginning among students, faculty, and administrators.
In a coalition between student councils presidents and student senators, the presence of Columbia College Student Council President Sue Yang, CC ’10, and Engineering Student Council President Whitney Green, SEAS ’10, on the Senate floor presented the latest in a string of maneuvers to reopen conversation on the academic calendar—especially as the debate becomes increasingly divided down student and faculty lines. University President Lee Bollinger, University Provost Claude Steele, and Columbia College Dean Michele Moody-Adams were among the 59 Senators in attendance.
With support from student senator Alex Frouman, CC ’10, and president-elect of the Senate’s Student Affairs Caucus (SAC) Tao Tan, MBA ’11 and CC ’07, Yang and Green presented their solution to conclude the fall semester before its scheduled Dec. 23 end date by starting a week early. Their limited early start plan would shift Columbia’s calendar back no earlier than Aug. 29 every four years in a 10-year time frame, or three years in a seven-year time frame.
“Never before in recent memory has there been such strong student support of something like this,” said Tan, mentioning the joint collaboration among all four undergraduate councils in drafting the proposal and its unanimous endorsement by SAC.
“A recent vote of Arts and Sciences department chairs shows unanimous support from all the Arts and Sciences departments for not ending on the 23rd,” he added.
Education Committee co-chair, and astronomy professor James Applegate, who has been spearheading the revision of the calendar since January, also addressed the Senate, acknowledging that the process hadn’t been all it could be. Applegate said he welcomed the student voices, but when speaking on behalf of faculty interests—particularly those of assistant professors—described an early start as “an obstacle in their road” to young parents on tenure track.
“Starting after Labor Day is a substantial benefit to their group,” Applegate said. He added, “This is particularly the case in the career paths of women. It is simply true ... that anything we do to make the family life at this stage beneficial for all, will benefit the career advancement of our female colleagues, and anything that we do that makes it more difficult will systematically destroy it.”
Applegate commented that an earlier start weighed against preparing for tenure nomination, “the issues involved in flying home on December 24th do not register on the same scale.” In light of divergent interests between students and faculty, he contended maintaining the calendar was the best solution.
Yang said that the concerns of the faculty—expressed in a statement by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences that rejected the early start, and suggested the alternative of holding classes on the Monday before Election Day and exams on the weekend—had been taken into consideration and suggested applying the early start to one out of seven or two out of ten years as a compromise.
Green also urged for a resolution to the calendar that would meet the needs of all stakeholders rather than the needs of some. “We’d like to move away from thinking about this as a student versus faculty proposal, but instead really move towards thinking about this as something that is beneficial to the Columbia community as a whole,” she said.
After the meeting, student representatives were pleased with the inclusion of the student voice, but had mixed opinions on how seriously it was received by the senators in attendance.
“At least now, we’re a part of the discourse and the negotiation, instead of walled off,” Green said.
“I think the next step is making sure people really understand the alternatives,” said Frouman. “This was step one. This was to put the discussion on the table.” Frouman and company plan to research University opinion and logistical constraints further, including how Cornell University deals with its early start. This fall, Cornell will begin classes on Aug. 25.
Student senator Rajat Roy, SEAS ’10, felt that the faculty “in general were not swayed” and didn’t fully understand why preserving the fall break and alleviating the compression at the end of the semester were important to his constituents. “The value system is a little different. We didn’t have a lot of time to show the holes in the faculty argument, which was a little disappointing. But this is an important first step in beginning the conversation,” he said.
When asked about the weight of student interests in the conversation, Tan said, “Obviously they’re not being weighed equally. Yesterday was the opening sales pitch to begin examining why they’re not weighed equally with faculty interests and to add more weight to the student side.”
Moving forward, Sharyn O’Halloran, professor of international and public affairs and chair of the Executive Committee, did not consider the conversation divided among faculty-student lines, and stressed the central matter at hand was to end before Dec. 23. “Its not the start date, it’s the end date that’s the student issue that we need to be focused on,” she said.
In the meantime, the academic calendar debate will continue in the Education Committee “for further thought and resolution,” Bollinger said in his closing address. It is uncertain whether a proposal to resolve the calendar will be voted on at the final plenary meeting of the year.
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