Early-Semester Calendar Policy Directive
Adopted by the Board of Regents, Feb. 8, 1995
Among the nation s public universities and colleges, Georgia s will be recognized for first-rate undergraduate education. . . . Georgians will appreciate the System s prestige and leadership in public higher education, including its graduate and professional programs . . .
To these ends, the University System of Georgia will be characterized by:
Students who master their majors and the basic skills of critical reasoning, independent thinking, computation, communication, collaboration, and creativity . . .
A world-class, diverse faculty and staff . . . who use new technologies, roles, and curricular innovations creatively to enhance student learning. . . .
The University System of Georgia will hold itself accountable to the citizens of Georgia for the effective and efficient use of every available material resource, new technology, and human insight and activity to achieve access to academic excellence. . . .
-- Access to Academic Excellence
The University System of Georgia
Shall promote to Georgians and the nation its commitment to service by supporting . . . national patterns of academic excellence in its curricula and operations.
Shall . . . have high academic standards for its students and programs, challenge and assist students to meet or exceed those standards . . . [and] use educational technology, innovation, and teaching strategies that produce the most learning. . . .
Shall encourage . . . collaboration [and] maximize economies of scale. . . .
-- Principles #8, 1, 10, 19
GOALS:
To complete a Systemwide shift to a semester program, contingent on a successful implementation plan, within the next three years, with no increase in continuing costs nor decrease in intraSystem transfer adverse impact on the System s partnerships with DTAE and K-12.
BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE:
The University System of Georgia has considered shifts to semester calendars on several occasions in the past 15 years. The most recent comprehensive study included cost estimates and systematic Systemwide sampling of student opinion in 1992 and of faculty and administrative opinion in 1993, and a final vote in favor of conversion by the 14-member Systemwide study committee. The strategic planning initiative since undertaken by the Board of Regents provides a fitting context for resolving this perennial issue. The commitments to administrative efficiencies and curricular innovation now articulated in the strategic principles suggest moving toward a semester calendar.
Views of the inherent advantages of semesters relative to quarters have changed little: semesters allow more time to digest and therefore retain course material, and to identify and correct learning difficulties, while quarters enforce focus, time management, and the concentrated time useful for discussion classes and practica; semesters allow fewer opportunities to start and stop one s studies, thereby improving retention but requiring longer-range student planning; semesters earlier summer completion date gives an advantage for new job applicants; and fewer terms can save administrative costs of such activities as registrations, timetable publications, book orders, dorm check-ins, and graduations.
Neither has there been any change in the national consensus that the major problems involved in converting to semesters inhere in the transition process itself. While expecting a $33,000 annual savings from semesters, Georgia State estimated in 1993 that the technical conversions of publications, forms, and administrative computer programs would involve a one-time cost of $30,000. Student difficulties in rethinking finances and course loads seem to be caused by change-related confusion rather than by semesters themselves. Orderly planning and consistency are widely recognized as essential to minimize conversion difficulties. While some System institutions have continued to advocate semesters and some quarters, a strong Systemwide consensus continues for having the same calendar type throughout the System and for a definitive decision to be made.
What has changed has been national context. In 1980, after ten years with few shifts nationwide from quarters to semesters or vice versa, the Chancellor s Office saw no compelling reasons . . . to abandon a quarter calendar system that is working with reasonable effectiveness. . . . When the University of Georgia raised the issue in 1990, however, 73% of its national peer institutions were on semesters, and the trend was toward more.
Considering all colleges and universities nationwide (not just UGA s peers), the clear majority using semester calendars now stands at 62%; only 21% are still on quarters. The UGA and Georgia State Law Schools are already on semesters; the UGA School of Pharmacy is requesting a similar exemption from the System s quarter calendar. During 1994 the number of institutions using the early semester increased by 34, while the number using quarters decreased by 22 nationwide. Not only pedagogical effectiveness (principles #1, 10) and economic efficiencies (principle #19), but also national patterns (principle #8) now argue in favor of seriously considering conversion.
IMPLEMENTATION:
The Board of Regents therefore mandates that the University System of Georgia convert to an early semester calendar, contingent on a detailed implementation plan being developed and presented to the Board to meet successfully the following conditions:
All institutions will convert to 15-week semesters, with possible exemptions only for clinical professional programs (as for the law schools now) and for the Medical College of Georgia; a minimum of 150 total class days per year will be binding on all, including any exempted from semesters calendars.
Computed as 2 semester credit hours for every 3 quarter credit hours, students shall be required to complete no more than the semester equivalent of their current degree requirements (e.g., 120 semester credits for a degree now requiring 180 quarter credits).
Instructional effectiveness, array, and quality shall be maintained, and no additional faculty will be required from the state.
There will be no presumption that all semester courses will be developed and taught for 3 credits. Faculty/staff development will be supported for the transition, with one-time budgetary incentives to promote curricular innovations and new telecommunications options timed to fit the new semester system.
Within a total of 60 semester hours firmly guaranteed to transfer within the System for students completing associate degrees, the core curriculum will be revised and a standard core course numbering system sought for all or part of that core curriculum.
Operational and curricular means will be developed to ease student tuition payment schedules, to facilitate coop and internship scheduling, to accommodate non-traditional students and/or commuters (by evening and weekend course scheduling and/or other means), to avoid overburdening faculty with multiple lab courses or too many separate preparations in a single semester, to rethink course pedagogy to support diverse student learning styles, to support faculty/staff development for the transition, and to maximize efficient use of classroom and lab facilities.
While there will be no increase in overall continuing costs, funding mechanisms will be developed to promote quality and protect against temporary and/or quality-related enrollment decreases.
Students, their parents, and the public will be well prepared for the transition.
The fullest possible calendar coordination will be sought with both the DTAE and K-12 school districts statewide to ease movement from one system to the other and to accommodate family holidays.
Flexible summer terms will be maintained, and may be adjusted to include one-month intensive segments for concentrated course work in May-June.
The implementation timetable with be developed to avoid Olympic conflicts, minimize technical conversion costs (e.g., computer re-programming and BANNER conversion, publications, summer salaries), maximize opportunities for curricular innovation, and have all System institutions begin teaching on semesters at the most opportune moment during the next three years.
Specifically, the Board directs that:
The Chancellor's Office establish:
- a Systemwide task force, with administrative and significant faculty membership and student consultation, to bring to the Board by early summer 1995 a detailed implementation plan that addresses the various provisos of this directive.
- a new administrative committee on undergraduate education to parallel the administrative committee on graduate work, both being charged to review the work of the discipline and transfer committees. If a semester conversion is determined ready to proceed, the new committee on undergraduate education will recommend, by fall 1995 and after appropriate consultation with other System committees, appropriate core curriculum revisions.
The Chancellor's Office develop, if and when the Board accepts the implementation plan, guidelines for the institutions as soon thereafter as possible, and coordinate timely publicity to students, parents, and the public.
The Presidents of all University System institutions be prepared to implement a conversion to the semesters, contingent on the development of a successful implementation plan and following the guidelines forwarded to them by the Chancellor's Office.
The Board further directs that all work toward a Systemwide conversion to early semesters be undertaken in keeping with the Board s guiding principles for strategic action, particularly those cited at the beginning of this policy directive.
