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[Phys-L] Re: Quarters vs Semesters



At 3:06 PM -0400 9/17/05, Robert Cohen wrote:

Maybe your school is right and Columbus is wrong. I don't know.
According to the Higher Education Act
(<http://ifap.ed.gov/bbooks/doc0010_bodyoftext.htm>) an academic year is
defined as at least 30 weeks of instructional time.

The site does say: "The 30-week minimum may be reduced to less than 30
weeks, but not less than 26 weeks, if an institution can show good cause.
ED may grant waivers of the 30-week requirement on a case-by-case basis
and only to postsecondary institutions that offer two-year or four-year
programs of study for which they award associate or baccalaureate degrees."

What would be considered "good cause? The difference between 26 weeks and
30 weeks seems huge to me.

At my institution the science division always votes to keep the semesters
at 15 weeks of instruction time (plus exams) and we always lose the vote, 5
to 1. The semesters get shorter and shorter with the rationale that our
students need to end early to get their summer jobs, and the other state
institutions have short semesters so we need to too.

Larry
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