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Re: calendar change



----- Original Message -----
From: Chuck Britton <britton@ODIE.NCSSM.EDU>

I experienced Semesters in the '60's with exams coming a coupla weeks
after Winter Solstice Break. (bummer)

Will the New - Revised - Revived Semester end BEFORE or AFTER the
afore mentioned break?
(Perhaps a semester ending BEFORE the solstice will be an improvement???)

I'm sure ALL semester based programs have long ago abandoned this calendar
(I too experienced it). Fall semesters end before XMAS (starting in August)
and Spring semesters go from January to May. Any major deviations from
this?

We have had the same schedule for all the thirty-five years SFU has
been in the ed biz. We have three equal *trimesters* starting in
September (fall), January (spring), and May (summer). There are
thirteen weeks of lecture in each trimester (etymologically "three
month interval"). I like this system very much. It gives us five
months between lectures whenever we have a research trimester, and
mine has been the summer trimester in all years but one. There are
plenty of volunteers to teach in the trimester with fewer students.

This has a down side. Thirteen weeks is too short a period for
courses taught from US textbooks designed, supposedly, for a longer
semester, but which are really even overstuffed on that schedule.
We have students who are very good, however, and they seem to
survive the firehose treatment in sufficient numbers to keep their
spirits up.

I think that few on the faculty would mant to change from our
present scheme. Many of us were used to the US schemes and we do
not want to go back to one of them. Note that we have elected not
to have a winter trimester. That also keeps our spirits up!

Leigh
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, British Columbia
Canada