The desk calendar will say Tuesday, but don't be fooled before Thanksgiving Break next year. It'll be a Friday.
The Ball State University academic calendar for 2007-08 is officially released, and it reflects two major changes approved by the university: the elimination of Saturday finals and the combination of withdrawal periods.
Elimination of Saturday finals was the most complicated change. Bruce Hozeski, University Senate chairman, said the school has considered many proposals for years about how to work around Saturday finals, but this is the first one it is trying.
"I personally might have picked one of the other options, but there's no easy answer," he said. "It's a little messy that the Friday class is going to be held on a Tuesday, and that's probably the one thing that's difficult about this proposal."
On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving Break, students and faculty will attend Friday classes. This ensures that there is an equal number of classes for each day of the week. Classes will meet for 15 Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, instead of having an extra Tuesday and one less Friday, Mike McCauley, director of Academic Information Services and Systems, said.
Fall Break is also shorted to a Friday through Sunday, instead of Saturday through Tuesday.
President Jo Ann Gora and the university approved the "Fruesday Plan," as it is unofficially called, last spring, but it was too late to implement it for the 2006-07 school year, Hozeski said. Too much paperwork for the university had been printed by then, he said.
Since then Ball State also approved the combination of withdrawal periods, which is also reflected on the calendar. Instead of two periods, there is only one per semester. Students may withdraw at anytime before the final withdrawal date and do not need instructor approval.
The calendar was finalized a little later this year so it could include the withdrawal policy changes that passed University Senate during Fall Semester, McCauley said. Overall, this calendar will work fine, he said.
Fall Semester will run from Aug. 2 to Dec. 14, and Spring Semester will run from Jan. 7 to May 2.
"As we work through it, we will discover things that weren't seen, but I hope if questions arise we will deal with them as they occur," McCauley said.
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