Keep College Calendar

One hundred years ago this past winter, Harvard undergraduates returned from Christmas break without having taken exams; in late January, they crammed into classrooms to sit for finals in Greek and Classical Philosophy. And still today, students at the College have had the advantage of a calendar that provides a longer reading period and later start date than most other schools.

But the current schedule may be at risk of a redesign that shifts exams before Christmas. The Committee on Calendar Reform, named last Thursday, will be discussing potential changes in the College’s calendar in an effort to coordinate all schools in the University. The committee will include two undergraduate and three graduate students, as well as professors from each of the schools to garner a variety of perspectives on the ten schedules that currently co-exist at Harvard.

But while creating a consistent schedule to ameliorate the current difficulties in cross-registration is a valuable end, the committee should remember the pedagogical and practical advantages of the College’s current schedule. And if it makes substantive changes, the committee should use the College schedule as the model for the other nine.

Currently the Education, Design, and Divinity schools all have exams after Christmas, and the Kennedy School—though it has before Christmas exams—starts and ends around the same time as the College. Bringing the remaining schools into sync with the College would require fewer transitions and have distinct educational advantages.

The current schedule allows for a lengthy reading period before exams, granting students enough time to process and then synthesize material from the entire semester. Such an important academic feat would be impossible with a shorter reading period that came right at the heels of class. The long reading period also provides an opportunity for students to devote significant attention to the creation of extensive final papers, a process that most replicates the life of a true academic.

A change to finals before Christmas would require both a shorter reading period and an earlier start date for the College; both are significant detriments for students. A crunch at the end of the semester, as students frantically rush to finish all of their work, decreases work quality and has been known to burnout students.

To retain a significant reading period with exams before Christmas, classes would need to start the last week of August or earlier, and reading period would likely still conflict with a vacation—Thanksgiving break.

But a start date in August might require students to return to Harvard immediately after summer jobs—preventing an opportunity to relax and recuperate between the end of internships and the beginning of the school year. Many students also enjoy the transitional week between move-in and registration, which would be impossible if classes started much earlier.

Some students complain that the threat of exams hanging over their heads ruins their enjoyment of break. And surely it does, if professors assign 25-page term papers for the third of January. But students are capable of putting their work on their minds’ back burners—they do everyday, maintaining extensive extracurricular and academic lives. To ease students’ minds during winter break does not require moving exams, only that professors restrict the work due after winter break to final papers and exams and assign due dates for the middle or end of reading period.

And while others claim that a month-long vacation would give students more freedom during their time off, intersession currently provides freedom of its own. Since it is often at the end of January, intersession offers students a unique opportunity to travel for a week or more after the holiday rush. Traveling on non-peak flights allows cash-strapped students to see parts of the world that would otherwise be out of their price range.

Harvard constantly works to distinguish itself from other institutions, and eliminating the distinctive College calendar would bring us in line with the other colleges—to a less favorable outcome. Harvard has a long history of tradition that is not dependent on imitating others. Starting in September, exams after Christmas, long reading periods, and intersession are a part of what makes Harvard the world-class institution that it is.

DISSENT: Cheap Tickets or Cheap Logic

It seems that the Staff has sacrificed the academic integrity of a laudable effort to align Harvard College’s schedule with that of the rest of the University—and the rest of the nation—for the sake of cheaper airline tickets.

This regrettable opinion does nothing more than maintain an anachronistic calendar. Even on a pragmatic level, keeping Fall Term’s exams after winter break will continue to ruin “vacations” of students with any conscientiousness about their studies. Unless we want to doom the legions of Harvard students to more years of having “time at home” meaning “time in front of the home computer” writing papers. And ending so late compared to other schools only serves to complicate our efforts to negiotiate summer internships in programs set up to accommodate students at nearly every other American college.

We recognize that the Fall Term will have to start earlier, but it will be worth it if we can then share vacation times with our friends and families for extended periods of time—without the prospect of exams sapping the merriness from every holiday season. The Staff, however, wants to resist a measure that would be a clear and long-overdue improvement to student life. Its ill-conceived position only seeks to conserve the oppressive status quo.

—Michael J. Hines ’04, Blake Jennelle ’04, Erin M. Kane ’05, Lia C. Larson ’05, Ronaldo Rauseo-Ricupero ’04, David W. Rizk ’05, Eoghan W. Stafford ’06 and Silas Xu ’05