The academic calendar for the 2003 school year has not been affected by the Saints’ decision to not return to campus this year.
“Upon making the academic calendar, the University has always taken into consideration how to work out the Saints’ needs with the fall schedule of the students,” Michael Delaune, director of university relations, said.
According to Alice Pecoraro, vice president of academic affairs, although the Saints’ decision to not return to campus did not affect the 2003-2004 academic calendar, it will affect the 2004-2005 academic calendar.
“In the past when the Saints came to campus, the calendar was only altered by one week. For the 2004-2005 academic school year, we will begin classes a week earlier than the past two years,” Pecoraro said.
She said the difference in the calendar for 2003 and 2004 will be that the students will receive a week off of school for the Thanksgiving holidays compared to the three days students are currently receiving off for Thanksgiving.
Pecoraro said Peter Strawitz, chair of the calendar committee and committee members always make the academic calendar the December prior to the upcoming year. Once the Saints announced they would not be returning, Pecoraro requested Strawitz and the committee meet to make any adjustments to the calendar, but since the calendar had already been published, they agreed to keep it the same. Now that the calendar has been made, it is on the agenda to be approved by the president’s cabinet and the University council to be made official.
According to Pecoraro, there are no hurricane days built into the calendar for next year, but the University has flexibility to make decisions regarding makeup days based on the amount of time the University is closed. She also said there was a request made for dead days for the academic calendar of 2004 but the calendar committee denied the request. Dead days were proposed by the SGA this past spring semester. Dead days were days in the past where no classes would meet two or three days before finals to allow students more time to study. The committee thought fall break and a week off for Thanksgiving was sufficient time for the students to prepare for finals.
“As for this coming year’s calendar, the students will like the fact that spring break will fall a week earlier because of when Easter falls. When students return from the break, they will have 10 days prior to the end of the spring semester,”Pecoraro said.