FINAL REPORT OF THE UNIVERSITY SENATE CALENDAR COMMITTEE FOR THE ACADEMIC YEAR 2001-02.

The Committee's members were Profs. Timothy Bengston, Laurence Draper (chair), Ernest Pogge (emeritus), Dennis Rosen, and Stacey White, and students, Kyle Browning, John Giampaoli, and Brett Skaugstad. To all of them I applaud their efforts to attend and contribute their insight to the Committee's business.

As to the charges to the Committee, I offer the following:

1. The Committee dealt with and resolved many requests for variances on the scheduling of special and final examinations, according to current guidelines, as they were presented to the Committee. A few such queries and requests are still pending and will be dealt with ad hoc soon or forwarded for consideration and action by next year's committee. (In particular see item 8f.)

2. The Director of Intercollegiate Athletics has been informed of the final examination periods for this coming academic year and the projected calendar for the three academic years beginning fall 2004. No violations or requests for exceptions have come to the Committee's attention. We thus assume all is well.

3. The faculty were informed of the rules governing final examinations as well as those concerning examinations during the final week of regularly scheduled classes (USRR 1.3.2; See below). However, such notification was not delivered until later in each semester than prescribed in the charge to the committee. As chair, I unilaterally decided that that notification should be delivered later in each semester so that it would be more likely catch the attention of the teaching faculty. Indeed, I would suggest that the wording of the charge be changed so as to have such notification be sent out in early November for the fall semester and early April for the spring semester.

4. As stated above in item 1, all such requests for variances in the date and time of examinations, whether special or final, were attended to as promptly as possible. Some requests were denied by vote of the Committee while others were approved. The record of each action is available upon request. With the fundamental change of the university's calendar beginning Fall 2001, more inquiries than usual were received. Indeed, the change caught some faculty by surprise. But, in the end, it has all worked out.

5. Minutes of the two face-to-face meetings of the Committee, one in the fall and one in the spring, were submitted to the governance office as required. It should be noted that most of the Committee's business was accomplished by extensive email correspondence. Though a slow process, it was necessary since finding a mutually convenient time for formal meetings was almost impossible. This report fulfills part of this charge. Specific recommendations for next year's committee are given below.

6. (Additional charges) The committee promptly developed a university calendar for Fall 2004 through Spring 2007. It was submitted to and approved by SenEx and the University Council. We assume that it has proceeded upwards through the necessary administrative hierarchy.

7. A member of the Committee (Morrell) has drawn up a policy statement for judging special and common final exam requests. The draft has been submitted to the Committee's members for review. At this time, I have received no objection or suggested modifications, and will thus assume that the draft is acceptable (See below).

8. a) Another item was delivered to the committee regarding the impact or problem arising from the fact that during the final exam week five, instead of four, exam times were scheduled per day, resulting, perhaps, in more requests for alternate exam times for students scheduled for more than two exams per day as the current rule allows. Other than the one query, the Committee received no other concern from faculty, and an informal query during a University Council meeting was met with silence. The Committee thus assumes that the calendar change has not created a significant problem for the scheduling of final examinations.

b) SenEx forwarded a concern of Prof. Hillesheim that the new university calendar unfairly allows for fewer Thursday/Saturday classes than those for other days of the week. The Committee discussed the issue but came to no workable conclusion or useful recommendation.

c) At my instigation, the wording of the rule in USRR 1.3.2 was challenged as being, at best, contradictory, and if not that, certainly confusing. The Committee proposed an alternate wording to SenEx. Subsequently, however, second thoughts arose. I have thus recommended that this issue be tabled for the moment, and resurrected as a charge for next year's committee to deal with.

d) In my experience as chair of this committee I found that many "urgent" requests for changes in scheduling of or permissions for special and final exams for the oncoming fall arose after the spring semester ended when the Calendar Committee does not officially exist. As a result, as incoming chair, I had to make decisions sans committee input. Some solution is needed. Moreover, the fact that student members of the Committee are not named until mid-September delays the beginning of business. The student members of the current committee agree that some effort should be made by the Student Senate to name committee members at the end of the preceding spring semester. Perhaps the same should be done for the faculty members.

e) I placed a call for a volunteer to chair next year's Committee. So far none has arisen to the challenge.

f) One pending item concerns the scheduling of midterm and final exams for a new, on-line course to be offered this fall by the Department of Economics. This is new, unexplored territory for which the Committee has no established guidelines, and thus should be attended to by next year's Calendar Committee.

Respectfully submitted,

Laurence R. Draper

Committee Chairman

Addendum: The following is a draft of rules guiding the submission of requests for special and common final examination requests (ref. charge #7). This draft has been delivered to the committee members but no further action has been taken so far.

Special Examinations - Administrative Rules

Final Week Examinations

Special Final Week common examinations may be approved for scheduling by the Office of the University Registrar for any course with multiple sections. The department chairperson must request a common final examination time to replace the normal final examination periods of each section.

Requests made under the following circumstances require approval of the Calendar Committee and must have the endorsement of the department chairperson:

1) Requests for an examination time other than the regularly scheduled one by any single section.

2) Requests for common examination times for like’ groups of courses or sections. For example, lower level language classes or honors sections and regular sections of the same course.

Evening Examinations during the Semester

Special evening examinations may be approved for scheduling by the Office of the University Registrar if one evening examination period is being proposed to replace a single class period for a course with multiple sections.

A request for an evening examination period for any other reason requires approval of the Calendar Committee and must have the endorsement of the department chairperson.