An intersession is a great way to include an intensive, focused (even more than usual) academic experience. It's also ideally suited to study abroad; these days, many teenagers and their parents are not interested in a whole semester abroad, but 3 weeks they can handle. Lots and lots of colleges have adjusted their calendars to lengthen the winter break to allow for an academically useful experience.
 

Given 1), and institutional inertia, 3) was hard to avoid. In any case, it needs to be judged from the perspective of the university as a whole and not just that of the college.
 

8:43 -- Blah blah blah. How about the summer? Are students prevented from going abroad because Harvard spends TOO MUCH time in session? What study-abroad programs run for three weeks in January? Looney Tunes.

8:55 -- Yeah, heaven forbid the College's schedule should be set by considerations emanating from its life as a college.
"Needs to be judged" in a certain way, huh? Well, my embezzlement needs to be judged from the perspective of my need for a bigger wide-screen TV.

SE

PS. And no, that was NOT meant to be a Randy Gomes reference.
 

(1) Sounds important but in fact does not amount to much. I have taught or co-taught many courses, in both fall and spring semesters, with large enrollment of students from schools outside FAS. Differences in beginning and ending dates do not seem to be a problem. Perhaps it could be more of a problem for students from teh college wanting to take classes in other schools, but as far as I know they are not in general welcome to do that. So scheduling is not the issue.

(2) Does not look so obvious to me. Going through a course, taking a break, then having the chance to go over it again, finishing papers and so on, seems to me a good thing.

I agree with SE about the value of study abroad for the brief time this would be possible in January.

Whether there is a Janary term in FAS or not, January will remain a busy month, what with hiring and graduate and undergraduate supervision;not a time in which faculty can get away or devote to their own work. So the effect of this change is a net lengthening of the academic year. In '09 it will begin Sept. 2 (as opposed to, sa, Sept. 17) and the last day of spring term classes (the relevant point for measuring the work year--who cares when commencement is?)will be April 28, roughly the same as in the past.

Tim Scanlon
 

It's not really that a January term is *prescribed* for all the schools... more that it's offered as filler, for everyone to cultivate their garden as they see fit.

0843 sounds like it was written by some PR person, but for a prep school ("teenagers and their parents"). "Three weeks they can handle." WTF?
 

Actually, having suffered through winter vacations dreading a return to school for exams, it busts my chops that my son won't be doing the same....
 

Somebody should go down to MIT and try to figure out how many people are there today. I'm told the place empties out pretty much in January.
 

Wait a minute, 10.56, how do you know your son is getting in? The calendar comes in for the first time in '09-10. Which means that if he's a current freshman or sophomore, he'll still know the ordeal you describe. And if he's younger, well, you must be on the COmmittee of University Resources or something.
 

He's a freshman. One year of suffering does not suffice.
 

Tim Scanlon is right that January will remain a very busy month for faculty members even after the calendar change. Oddly enough, while we're interviewing job candidates, helping graduate students on the job market prepare for interviews on other campuses, and dealing with pre-exam reviews and other issues involving undergraduates, Harvard assumes that it can close down the Barker Center café throughout reading period. Something of a contradiction, no?
 

My guess is that a lot of faculty, the ones not doing the three weeks abroad with their teenagers, will leave town or just hide out and do their own work, justifiably since two weeks of late summer research time are deducted. Fewer colleagues will therefore be around for the continuing January activities referred to by Judith Ryan. Tim Scanlon is right about SE being right about the three-week study abroad idea in terms of existing programs. Sorry to hear about your café, Judith.
 

SE, are you saying that Harvard shouldn't have moved to a coordinated calendar for all the schools? Or that the College should pick the schedule that's best for it and the other schools should be forced to copy it?
 

The latter; if that fails, then the former.

Exams after Christmas stink. Let's start classes August 20 -- the kids all waste that last two or three weeks anyway.
 

Why did the FAS faculty not have a chance to discuss the effects on the College before this was adopted?

Even if most faculty seemed to be in favor of finishing the fall before Christmas, there was almost no attention paid to the choice between a three week break in January and a two week longer summer.

On the new calendar, the academic year has been lengthened in effect by two weeks. Compare the last day of classes in the spring.

Wouldn't most students as well as most faculty prefer (for good reasons) to have a longer summer than to have a January break (or even January study abroad)?

At least this should have been discussed by the FAS faculty for its effects on the College, and not left to the Provost and Registrars (and the Verba committee which was a university wide body).
 

This reform does nothing to affect the more serious problem of taking courses across schools. It is the clock, not the calendar! 90 minute classes in the Law School and Business School, and unusual start and stop times in various other schools.
 

To answer the question posed by 5:26:
The calendar is set by the University as a whole. FAS was told way back when this change was no more than a subterranean rumble that the faculty would not have a say in it.
I personally think one can argue both ways about what is, or might be, good for the College.
 

the calendar change is a good smokescreen just at the time when the applications are in.

that and this headline in the Crimson will cover up what's really happening in many of the programs.

Harvard Reports Jump in Applicants
 

What is "happening in the programs"? What programs do you mean?
 

I just hope it's not 'pogroms.' Three weeks would be a long pogrom, even in the winter when hiding in attics can be cozy.

Tasteless Eagle
 

It is unlike Judith Ryan to sound like a defender of central power. Until this "reform" the schools set different start dates and even different exam periods. Only commencement was the same. This was the corporation exercising a power that they probably have but had never exercised in this way.
It is a legacy of Summers, who could not have pulled it off. That took Bok, who had so much good will that the faculty might have let him cut salaries if he had asked them to.

Ryan is right that you could argue either way about the educational and other effects on the College. I happen to think that exams before Christmas is good move, but that lengthening the academic year into June just to get 3 weeks in January is a bad one. But the faculty never considered the last point at all, and was not given the chance to discuss the overall effect. I don't think any school should have a veto, but I do think each school should be able to discuss collectively and express its view about the specific effects on its on students.
 

I agree with 9:17. Exams before Christmas, but don't reduce the length of the summer. Commencement is the issue here, since you can't get the grass green enough or temperature warm enough by May 10 (though with global warming . . . ). You also can't a) send seniors home and expect they'll return for commencement three weeks later, or b) extend their post-exam festivities by a couple of weeks. Yale finesses with a two-week spring break.
 

I disagree. The summer is too long -- not at the beginning, but at the end.

I don't see why classes should start any later than September 1.

--Standing Eagle
Too Irritated with the Technology to Log in at the Moment
 

One more clue to the identity of Standing Eagle... he doesn't have a home on the Cape. If he did, he'd want to have reason to stay there as long until September as possible, when it's still summery & yet without crowds.
 

JK Rowling for Commencement speaker?
 

To 9:17 am: I didn't mean to sound like a defender of centralized power. I just meant to state a fact in the history of this calendar change, which was that FAS was told from quite early that we would not be given a vote on this matter.
I did mean it when I said one could argue both ways about what is good for the college, and contributors to this blog have suggested some of the arguments on either side. One thing I do believe, from my experience advising students on various levels, is that three weeks of vacation in January could help some students take a breather and recoup their energies for second semester. In that regard I differ from 9:17.
 

The faculty shouldn't have to discuss this issue only a blog, though they should be grateful at least for that opportunity. (Thanks, Richard.)

The faculty should not have so meekly accepted their disenfranchisement. Discussing and even voting does not mean that FAS or any school would have a veto, but it would have allowed a more serious consideration of the issue than writing individual letters to the president.
 

We discussed, we just didn't and couldn't, vote. For what it's worth my guess is a vote for Fall exams before Christmas would have passed while a vote for a three-week January term would have failed. That's certainly how I would have voted.

I have a senior (non-Harvard) child who started her spring term yesterday, having been home since Dec. 20. While she had a more relaxed time of it than did my older Harvard alum child, the thought that she would need a couple more weeks to recover from the fall doesn't hold, and the opening post of this thread exposes the flawed thinking:

"Lots and lots of colleges have adjusted their calendars to lengthen the winter break to allow for an academically useful experience."

But which is it? We seem to be saying it is both a longer winter break and an intensive academic experience. Will the student who needs to take a (5-6 week) breather in fact do so?

As for discussing this on a blog, why not? I find it useful. So yes, thank you, RB.
 

I want a short course on Harry Potter, myself.

“Perhaps no one in our time has done more than J.K. Rowling to inspire young people to experience the excitement and the sheer joy of reading,” said President Drew Faust. “Her tales of Harry, Ron, and Hermione and their Hogwarts adventures have cast a spell on millions of readers around the world. Harvard isn’t exactly Hogwarts, but I’m sure that her visit with us this June will be a moment of magic for J.K. Rowling’s many admirers across the University.”
 

it will take more than Harry's and Hermione's spells to reverse the downward trend in applications to Harvard's graduate professional programs.
 

while application numbers go down,
in the professional schools,
and the endowment keeps on growing,
Harvard tinkers with the calendar,
and with nano study abroad

--hey, how about a weekend overseas experience in Bermuda?
or perhaps an intensive world conference of worldly affairs at Epcot?
or an intense discussion of Renaissance culture in Bertucci's?

wizards, witches, please come on,
let's build a yellow brick road,
let's raise funds for platform 9¾ in Allston futuristic new T-stop for the brand new Crimson line,
travelling at the speed of light.

Send all our students into parallel worlds,
into magic, into wizardry,
for their world is just too tough,
and their teachers too out of touch.

Wait a minute?
Is that John Harvard statue in the Yard?
Looks like a wizard to me,
where is his wand?

But the important question is this:
Will the Ministry of Magic crack down on Harvard? Will they find Harvard's curriculum up to standards with the many demands budding wizzards and witches face these days?

Now let's all sing in unisone,
at the tune of London Bridge:

While applications go down,
they go down,
they go down,
While applications go down,
let's be merry.
 

Huh. Was that supposed to be impressive?
 

Still, you do have to admit that platform 9¾ in Allston is a good idea.
 

yes, maybe it will open the door to an influx of applicants from Hogwart interested in pursuing graduate studies.
 

Let's hope they bring their magic spells with them (to help them get jobs afterward).