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Boalt Admins/Faculty Propose a New 13 Week Semester

If you're reading M*ndi's emails, then you know that the law school is considering substantially altering the class and semester schedules beginning next fall. Seeing as these changes affect law students, there's bound to be a bunch of complaining about these changes.

The change is meant to coincide with the change in OCIP (now scheduled for August 8 to 12). Classes would begin on August 29th and there would be no flyback week. This would also mean that semesters are 13 weeks long instead of 14, with Spring semester being pushed back a week. This shift also means that the Fall semester wouldn't end until December 19th, instead of December 15th.

Additionally, we would go from having 6 "bands" of classes (scheduling times over the week) to 5 "bands." This means there would no longer be classes before 9:00am, but at the cost of having one fewer time to schedule classes a week. This will inevitably lead to worse course conflicts than we see now.

While this is probably a good idea and will likely be instituted, it does raise the question of financial aid disbursement. Right now, aid is disbursed during the first week of classes. Under the new schedule, this means aid wouldn't be disbursed until September 1, 2011 or somewhere thereabouts. The Curriculum Committee recognizes this is an issue and is looking into whether or not the disbursement can be moved up.

The elimination of Fall Break is sort of sad. It's a great week for 1Ls, 3Ls and 2Ls like me who weren't looking at firm jobs to spend the week doing whatever we wanted. We will lose this and late November will probably seem more horrible than it already does as a result. However, that seems a small price to pay for an extended summer vacation.

BHSA will be hosting a Proposal Panel Discussion this Thursday, January 20th at 12:45pm in room 140 regarding the proposal. Representatives from the CDO, Financial Aid, and Faculty will be on the panel.

Also, can someone explain Pope Gregory make up days? The calendar attached to M*ndi's email has them, but I do not understand what in Christ's name it means.

Full post as published by Nuts & Boalts on January 19, 2011 (boomark / email).