Finals to start on a Thursday
Graduating students will receive their diploma at commencement this year thanks to a new schedule for final exams.
Spring Semester classes end Tuesday, April 20 and finals begin the following Thursday, April 22. Finals are scheduled to end in the afternoon on April 28, allowing more than two days for graduating students to finish closing out, said Assistant Provost Sydney Peterson, chairperson of the calendaring committee.
“The changes to the calendar … occurred because we are closing out students and the president will actually hand out diplomas to the students [at graduation],” Peterson said.
With classes ending on a Tuesday and finals starting on a Thursday, an interim day, a day without classes, is scheduled for April 21.
“We’ve never had an interim day before,” Peterson said. “There has typically been a weekend [before the start of finals.]”
Peterson said the committee felt it was important to give students the interim day so they could prepare for their tests.
In the future, Peterson said, five full days will be scheduled for finals and three days for closing out students.
“We will try and change that back in the future as we have more time to plan the calendar,” she said.
Changing the day students return from Winter Break will accommodate future changes. Students are scheduled to return to school on Jan. 10, 2005, but that could be changed to as early as Jan. 5, Peterson said.
“Part of the problem is the calendar gets planned so far in advance that the end parameters are set,” she said. “We actually need to look at doing something [like this year] next spring.”
Peterson said the calendar is typically planned three years in advance and that makes it hard to make adjustments. The school’s flexibility in changing dates is also restricted to dates within the school year.
“We couldn’t really mess with the start date and the end date because students have housing contracts,” she said.
Peterson said having students return from Winter Break on Jan. 5 might not be a popular option, but considering alternatives like shortening Spring Break, it might be the best.
“Spring Break is an option [but] it has never been a very popular option,” she said.
Students would be hesitant to switch to a two- or three-day Spring Break, she said.
“We’re trying to keep some of the things that are really important to everyone intact,” she said.
Peterson said the system Utah State University will use to close out students and hand out diplomas at graduation is also used by Ohio State University.
“They hand out diplomas after every quarter, so they do have a period of time to close out students and hand out diplomas,” she said. “They’ve been doing it for years and they love it.”
-str@cc.usu.edu