I am sure that some schools converted year-long 5-5-5 quarter courses
into 4-4 semester courses, which is a significant reduction. If that is
done wholesale, then it seems to me the switch from quarters to
semesters would have to be viewed as academically bad, or at least
cheating the students.
However, I am aware that some instances of 5-5-5 becoming 4-4 were done
to balance out single 5-qtr courses that became single 4 qtr courses.
Said differently, a chemistry or physics department has to look at the
whole major program and how all the courses change. If every course is
year long, and they like it that way, then 5-5-5 becomes 5-5 and 4-4-4-
becomes 4-4, and so forth. But it is often just the core courses that
are full-year courses.
Suppose every physics course was a 5-quarter-hour course, and some were
year-long and some were single quarter. If all the year-longs stayed
the same, and all single 5 qtrs became single 4 sems, then the size of
the major has grown. If the year-longs stay the same and all single 5
qtrs become single 3 sems then the overall size of the major has shrunk.
A concurrent goal is probably to keep the total size of the major the
same in terms of percentage of overall required graduation hours.
Unless all courses are year-long, aiming for the same overall percentage
is going to require some courses to expand and some courses to contract.
There is also the possibility that some courses could die and new ones
replace them. Hence, a change in calendar is a time that the department
can repackage the program to have slightly different (hopefully
improved) emphasis (i.e. division of topics and time spent on those
topics).
This could be done by preserving the year-longs and having some singles
expand and some contract. It could also be done by have some year-longs
contract so that more singles can expand. I would hope that those
schools for which the year-longs contract from 5-5-5 to 4-4 counteracted
that with expansion of sufficient singles so the overall physics major
stayed about the same percentage of total graduation hours as before the
conversion.
At my school we chose to preserve all the chemistry, physics, math
year-longs intact because these are fundamental core courses. We made
up/down and repackaging adjustments in the single-term courses. In the
end our physics and chemistry major programs now constitute a little
higher percentage of total graduation hours than before the conversion.
We were given a range that we were allowed to do without requiring
faculty approval. Majors were allowed to grow slightly or shrink
slightly within a certain percentage range established by the Dean's
Office and the Academic Programs Committee of the faculty.
Initially were pleased we could grow slightly because we were already
somewhat angry that "major limits" prevented us from requiring all the
courses we wanted to require. However, our apparent slight growth in
hours as a percentage of graduation hours was more than wiped out in
terms of content that could be covered when they adopted a 28-week year
rather than a 30-week year.
In the end, I can respect any school/department that pulls off a
calendar change that preserves the major programs essentially the same
as they were, or that allows the department to repackage and restructure
in a way that the department feels comfortable with as an improvement or
a wash. I cannot respect a school or department that does a calendar
change that results in the students spending the same money (or more)
and receiving less instruction. If the calendar change was forced by an
administration wanting to cut costs, you can usually bet that the
conversion was done in a way that gave the students less for their
money. It's just hard to cut costs without cutting program.
As I stated before, I asked the administration to demonstrate how the
change to semesters would cut costs. They absolutely did not cut any
staff during the conversion. If the savings was not obtained from
cutting staff, then where did it come from? It did not come from 2
registrations/grade-reports versus 3 registrations/grade-reports because
these have almost no cost other than staffing costs, and the staffing
costs did not change.
In the end, the only savings I can see came from charging the same
tuition/room/board for 28 weeks rather than 30 weeks. It appears to me
the calendar change was simply a disguise for shortening the year. Had
they shortened the year and stayed on quarters, students and parents
might have complained (note the "might have"). By switching to
semesters the shortening of the year was disguised.
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry and Physics
Bluffton University
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu
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