Vol. 38, No. 18

3-4-2009
By: Jeff McCallister

Semester switch moves toward historic Senate vote

University Senate will vote March 12 on a resolution to switch Ohio State to a semester-based calendar to begin the 2012 school year.

The senate’s ad hoc Semester Conversion Committee, chaired by Tim Gerber, presented a proposed resolution to the Faculty Council during the council’s Feb. 26 meeting at The Blackwell. The resolution not only endorsed switching from the quarter system, on which Ohio State has operated since 1922, but also put forth a calendar model.

While there seemed to be general consensus that the switch should be made, the exact form the calendar will take drew strong debate from members of the council.

The Gerber committee’s semesters had 65 instructional days each, a week-long break and another week for exams, followed by three-week mini-terms in January and May. Summer term would consist of three three-week mini-terms. 

In the end, council voted 23-6 to move the resolution on to the next stages of committee work leading up to a vote of the full senate at its meeting March 12 at 130 Drinko Hall.

The next stage is work by the senate’s Council on Enrollment and Student Progress. The resolution charges the CESP with bringing a precise 2012 calendar to the full senate for review and approval, and that work was to begin March 3.

Under normal procedures, the CESP sets the university’s calendar, as it has done within the quarter system, without need for approval by the full senate. But since such a sweeping change will have widespread effects on every corner of campus, the full senate will vote on the initial model.

Faculty members generally agreed on the merits of shorter semesters rather than long — 13 weeks, for example, rather than as many as 15, according to Faculty Council Chair Richard Gunther.

It was unclear as onCampus went to press, however, to what extent a calendar model was to be included when the issue of conversion reaches the full senate vote.

Several members of the Faculty Council said they’d be hesitant to vote for semester conversion without a specific model to vote for; others said the details could be worked out later, and that the charge of the ad hoc committee had been only to determine the desirability of a conversion.

The prospect of a calendar conversion had been debated twice previously in the last 18 years. It was rejected in the committee stage in 1991, then approved through committee in 2001 before being tabled by the full senate over a number of concerns.

The implementation of a new, modern SIS over the course of this year has done away one of those hurdles, and most others were addressed in a letter to the committee by Executive Vice President and Provost Joe Alutto.

The main impetus behind the current movement is the Strategic Plan for Higher Education put forth a year ago by Chancellor Eric Fingerhut.

The plan calls for a common academic calendar across the University System of Ohio to facilitate easier integration of the universities, trim costs by improving efficiency and facilitate transfer of credits between institutions.

Gerber’s committee also said a conversion would eliminate a “competitive disadvantage” for OSU students applying for summer internships and job opportunites that they can’t begin until end of spring term in June, a month after semester-based institutions let out for summer.

The cost of the switch was a significant part of the committee’s report. Included was an estimate from Alutto that put the price tag at between $6 million and $8 million.

“It is important to note that virtually all of these involve one-time allocations of cash rather than continuing costs,” Alutto said. “In addition, these issues should be placed in the context of an economic and political set of realities that argue for moving forward if the costs of transition are not unmanageable.

“For example, at a time when the governor and state legislature are focusing limited resources on higher education, and Ohio State in particular, it is important that we follow through on expectations that we will actively support the concept of a reasonably integrated system of higher education for Ohio.”

Only four of the 13 four-year universities in Ohio — OSU, Ohio University, Wright State and Cincinnati — remain on quarters, and all four are now at some stage of conversion.

Should the senate approve the resolution to convert, the issue would need approval by the Board of Trustees. Work would then continue to iron out any remaining details, including redesigning of curricula and implementation of the system.

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