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[Phys-L] Quarter system

As a faculty member, the current schedule is easier and I have to work
fewer weeks of the year. But that is not what motivates me as a professor.
Teaching and education is what motivates me. For a campus population like
ours: almost entirely a commuter campus with a significant non-trad student
body, with a large number of students already being parents and with jobs,
the quarter system made a LOT more sense.

The votes by the faculty were roughly split 50/50 with those faculty who
were never students at a quarter system university being the ones that
carried the day in that 50% fraction. The publicly claimed motivation was
"saving money" with various lame excuses as to how that would work, all of
which are invalid now that we don't print class schedules and catalogs. The
real motivation when you asked enough questions was that BYU was on
semesters, so we should be too. I've nothing against BYU in this regard and
have AAPT chapter colleagues there that I enjoy meeting with, but they also
have a very different student body than we do. For starters, their fraction
of full-time students is much higher than for WSU.

The semester change was annoying, the shortened semester change was
maddening.

- - - -
John E. Sohl, Ph.D.
Professor of Physics
Weber State University
1415 Edvalson St., Dept 2508
Ogden, UT 84408-2508

Office: TY 326
voice: (801) 626-7907
cell: (801) 476-0589

On Sun, Mar 4, 2018 at 10:00 AM, <phys-l-request@mail.phys-l.org> wrote:


That's a depressing story.

IMHO they should have just stuck with the quarter system.
Of course they'll never go back to that, because that
would be tantamount to admitting they made a mistake.

The quarter system has been around for nearly 1000 years.
It aligns nicely with established holidays.

The phase-locking argument carries some weight, but the
direction is open to dispute. If the university down
the road is on the semester system, maybe *they* should
be the ones to change.


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