Following a presentation from administrators on a proposed change to the academic calendar, GUSA voted against a proposal by junior representative Aaron Kass (COL ’02). Kass’ proposal opposed the calendar ch!ange and called for a forum for discussion on the subject. The proposed calendar change would drastically cut Senior Week and merge spring and Easter breaks.

“The proposal was defeated in part because we didn’t offer any constructive alternatives,” Kass said. A motion to table discussion of Kass’ proposal did not pass, and GUSA went on to defeat the proposal by an 8-7 vote.

“The important thing to realize is that GUSA does not not support the calendar,” Kass said.

University Provost Dorothy Brown and University Registrar John Q. Pierce spoke to GUSA about proposed calendar changes during the weekly GUSA meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 1. They summarized the two proposals put forward by the council of associate deans and the office of the provost, as well as fielding student questions.

Every year the Council of Associate Deans meets in the fall to look at the calendar for the upcoming year.

“We’re spending more time on this calendar than we’ve spent on any calendar since I began doing the calendars,” Pierce said.

According to Pierce, for the last 25-plus years or more Georgetown’s policy has been to model the coming academic calendar after the calendar that last shared the same dates. Usually, this occurs every 10 years. The one on which the next calendar would be based upon indicates that because Easter falls early in the semester, Easter and spring breaks should be combined for this academic school year, in order to avoid a limited amount of classes between two breaks.

The second major change proposed involves moving Georgetown’s commencement ceremonies to an earlier date. “We’ve been hearing about it for 20 years,” Pierce said, referring to parent and faculty complaints about holding the ceremonies on Memorial Day weekend. Georgetown’s academic year normally begins the week after Labor Day with commencement being held on Memorial Day weekend. Other schools, such as Boston College, Loyola and Notre Dame have earlier Commencements.

The two administrators cited reasons such as the idea that it is considered much easier to get commencement speakers if the Commencement is held earlier and that Memorial Day weekend is often a hard time to for families to travel to Georgetown due to heavy holiday traffic.

In order to facilitate this proposal, Senior Week would be shortened from eight to three days.

The administrators also discussed talking to the Junior Class Committee on an evening in the near future, in order to hear their opinions on the calendar for their senior year. Juniors at the meeting indicated that they were willing to make many sacrifices in order to have an eight day senior week as opposed to a three day one. They said that they prefer a longer Senior Week because this time is the culmination of their Georgetown experience.

After the two administrators finished speaking, the assembly was called to order. There was a call for a five minute discussion by class representatives of a submitted proposal condemning the combination of spring and Easter breaks, which was quickly followed by a move to table the discussion until next the week. Representatives said that the proposal should be tabled because it was too forceful and there would be too many amendments to work everything out that evening.

Pierce said that a decision must be made by Thanksgiving.

“I’m already getting a lot of pressure from people to have a calendar for next year.” He emphasized the need for a decision saying, “In some ways I don’t care what the calendar is . I just want a calendar!”

Brown said whatever decisions GUSA and the JCC make, they “will be weighed very seriously, because these are the people the commencement is for.” She emphasized that the administration was trying to see what impact the calendar change would have and would also listen very carefully to the faculty’s recommendations.

If this new calendar is adopted and works well, it will be the new model for years when Easter falls on an early date in the semester.