Students plan further academic calendar protests

The student fight for a revised academic calendar has returned to its roots on Facebook.

On Wednesday night, the Facebook group Petition to Change Columbia University Winter Break Calendar sent a message to its more than 2,000 members urging them to send emails to administrators expressing dissatisfaction with the latest University Senate proposal on the calendar.

Last Friday, the USenate Education Committee, which reviews the calendar every 10 years, announced its recommendation to maintain the current calendar, with an added provision to help students reschedule December 23rd exams.

The calendar has been a point of contention between students and faculty, since faculty generally want to maintain the tradition of starting after Labor Day, despite the fact that late Labor Days can force students to take exams two days before Christmas.

This week’s letter released by the Facebook group claims that the Education Committee resolution “does not resolve most grievances posed by students,” and, “has failed to address the main concerns students expressed in the Petition To Change the Fall Academic Calendar [the original letter drafted in January].” The Facebook group has also created an event to “put pressure on the senate” at next Friday’s Senate plenary meeting, and as of Thursday night, the event had 128 confirmed guests.

The resolution the USenate handed down last week allows students to reschedule exams that fall on the 23rd of December by making arrangements with the Dean of Student Affairs and their professors. Opponents, though, contend that this does not alleviate the financial and logistical stress on students who must make last-minute holiday travel arrangements, and also further compresses an already packed exam schedule.

The group also argues that the option to reschedule exams “is solely at the discretion of the Dean of Student Affairs, which may lead to an unintended bias that the student population will not be able to predict.”

Tao Tan, CC ’07, MBA ’11, and chair of the Student Affairs Committee who helped draft the resolution, argues that many of the demands that students are now complaining about were not presented to the Senate initially. “The original letter from them we received in January…very explicitly stated people need to get home for the holidays. It made no mention of study days or a crammed schedule at the end of the semester,” Tan said.

Sue Yang, CC ’10 and CCSC president, said, “I share what their [Facebook group] frustration is with the resolution that has been put forth, because it doesn’t tackle what we had gone in presenting as the central issue—which is compression of the calendar.” She argued that the resolution is problematic because students who opt to take earlier exams will be forced to have a shorter study period.

Yang ,though, said she does not unequivocally back the Facebook group’s petition. “It’s difficult because councils are in transition. ... I’m not sure how productive of a measure it will end up being.”

Tan countered, “This is a win for students and second of all it’s a first step…and it’s just one step in the process of addressing these concerns.”

James Applegate and Letty Moss-Salentijn, faculty co-chairs of the Education Committee, could not be reached for comment on Thursday.