Legislation aimed at ending Saturday finals will have to wait, after University Senators Thursday declined to vote on the issue and instead asked a committee to inspect it further.
The legislation now rests in the undergraduate education committee, a "frustrating" outcome, said Student Government Association President Jayson Manship.
University Senate Chairwoman Marilyn Buck said the chances of the legislation returning to the Senate this year are slim.
The undergraduate education committee only has one more meeting, Buck said, and she doesn't know if the committee will have time to discuss it.
Megan Pickens, former SGA vice president, who wrote the bill, said she is not sure what steps to take now.
"You just have to stay active," she said.
Pickens and student senator Mike Slocum worked on the legislation, which originated in the Student Senate. They also served on the University Senate's ad hoc committee, which debated it.
Both students, however, will graduate this year, so they are entrusting the issue to Manship's slate and Nick Zuniga, Manship's chief of staff.
Zuniga also helped Pickens write the bill.
The legislation would effectively create the same schedule in the fall as the one used in the spring. Finals week would be bumped back a day and run from Monday through Friday.
Daytime Monday classes would be lost, but night classes would have an extra 20 minutes added onto them during the semester to make up for the lost night in December.
"Frankly, I'm not sure how appropriate it is to have a regular day of classes before finals week," Pickens said. "I shouldn't have to go to class Tuesday and Thursday and then expect to go on Saturday."
During the Senate meeting, Pickens argued that eliminating Saturday finals would remove the inconsistencies between the two semesters' schedules brought on by Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Currently, the holiday effectively removes a day of classes in the spring.
But Mike McCauley, who prepares an early draft of the calendar each year for administrators, said he does not remember anyone concerned about this when they debated the Martin Luther King Jr. day legislation.
McCauley said, however, that eliminating Saturday finals would hurt students who have labs or studio work on Mondays, including students in the sciences, nursing, art and architecture.
These labs, McCauley said, often run for two or more hours.
Provost Beverley Pitts, who opposed Picken's bill, echoed McCauley's concerns at the Senate meeting.
Pitts usually remains silent on issues, but she said the Senate should not pass legislation that would only help a few students with Saturday finals but could affect all students. The bill, she said, would also "chip away" at the calendar, a creation that needs to be considered as a whole.
Pitts recommended that the bill return to the committee system, but Senator Joe Losco, the chairman of the political science department, made the motion.
The 24-member undergraduate education committee, which sits three students, is charged with handling calendar affairs for the Senate, but it has yet to address this bill.
In hindsight, Buck said, the undergraduate education committee probably should have considered the bill before the Senate took action.
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