Year-Round Calendar Proposed
The executive committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences had before it last month a proposal from the Committee on Educational Planning that would change the standard academic calendar to a 12-month, fourterm year and would permit a 25% increase in undergraduate enrollment at relatively little extra cost. Under this plan, Dartmouth students at two points in the undergraduate course would attend college for 12 consecutive months, with only brief vacations between terms.
In brief, the proposed calendar calls for a traditional freshman year of three terms, beginning in the fall; followed successively by six months off campus, 12 months of formal study, six months off campus again, and finally another 12-month period of study. The non-vacation portion of the off-campus periods would be devoted to a job or an independent study project related to the student's educational program at Dartmouth. A one-term project off campus would become an integral part of every student's course of study.
The CEP proposal, which was being hotly debated pro and con at last month's meetings, will need the approval of the full faculty and then of the Board of Trustees if it is to be adopted. Its fate was uncertain as this was written, but if all hurdles were cleared, the new calendar could be instituted in the fall of 1972.
The plan has received the backing of President Kemeny, who describes it as "a most exciting new educational plan that could make a significant national contribution to higher education." He also sees an advantage in being able to break out of the "straitjacket" of the traditional secondary-school calendar set centuries ago to meet the labor needs of an agricultural society.
Not only does the proposed calendar call for year-round use of the College's physical facilities, but those favoring it say that the new sequence of terms on and off the campus will permit a more flexible and less fragmented educational program for each student. Opening up the possibility of a 25% increase in enrollment, without the huge cost that such a move would entail under the traditional calendar, would also be a major advantage should the College Trustees decide in favor of coeducation.
Opposition to the CEP proposal has come mainly from those who are concerned over what such an in-and-out flow of students would do to undergraduate life, the College's sense of community, and extracurricular activities, especially athletics. Critics have also pointed out that if Dartmouth were too "different" in its academic calendar, there might be a falling off in applicants for admission.
The CEP, while describing the proposed calendar as the "standard model" for most students, has answered that there is ample room in the plan's enrollment projections for program flexibility. Prof. Hans H. Penner of the Department of Religion, chairman of CEP, has said that students who might want to make changes for reasons of curricular planning, athletics, or other extracurricular activities could do so within the framework of the four-term year. Flexibility would also be possible, he said, for students who might have to substitute for any regular on-campus term of study such supervised and course-credit offerings as the Foreign Language and Foreign Study Programs and the Tucker Foundation and Public Affairs internships. About 150 undergraduates are off campus each term now on these programs, which would be expected to increase under the new calendar.
Students wishing to continue the traditional three-term pattern, with each summer off, would require the special permission of the Dean, according to the CEP recommendation. At the same time, the report stressed that for both students and faculty accommodation, rather than coercion, would be central to the success of the proposed calendar.
A 25 % increase in Dartmouth's present undergraduate enrollment of 3200 could be achieved, according to the CEP report, by adopting a full summer term and making standard use of the off-campus term. This would actually lower slightly the College's present on-campus population. If the Trustees were to approve coeducation for Dartmouth, the increased enrollment capacity made possible by the new calendar could permit the College to enroll up to 1000 women, combining degree candidates and women exchange students, while maintaining a male undergraduate enrollment of 3000.
According to the proposal, worked out in detail by the eight faculty and three student members of the CEP over a period of several months, the equivalent of one whole class of 1000 undergraduates would be away from campus on either vacations, jobs, or off-campus projects throughout each year. With the equivalent of the remaining three classes spread over four terms, the CEP estimates there would be only about 3000 students on campus during typical fall, winter, and spring terms, and about 1600 during the summer.
For faculty, the CEP proposal rec- ommends that academic departments arrange course sequences and distribution, as well as faculty assignments, on the basis of four terms a year, recognizing that summer-term enrollment would probably be lighter than the other three. The proposal also specifies that individual faculty members would be expected to teach no more than three terms a year, as at present. According to the CEP projections, there could be enough faculty teaching on campus each term if total faculty strength were increased by 10% and faculty members agreed to stagger their vacations. There would be a slight increase in Dartmouth's student teacher ratio from about 12-to-1 to 13-to-1, the CEP report indicated, adding that this increase could easily be absorbed by shifts in teacher distribution without injury to Dartmouth's traditional concern for excellence in teaching and in the climate of the classroom.
According to CEP figures, added tuition from a 25% increase in enrollment would cover the costs of both added faculty and administrative support to help students arrange their off-campus term projects, and perhaps produce a slight surplus.
A critical ingredient in the proposed Dartmouth calendar, the off-campus term concept, has generally been enthusiastically accepted. Students in two polls, one conducted a year ago by the Department of Sociology and the other last December by President Kemeny, indicated their strong approval for the idea.
Because of the individualized and essentially interdisciplinary character of the off-campus term projects, the CEP has recommended that no course credits be given for that term. Rather, it was proposed that graduation requirements be reduced from 36 to 33 courses for those men successfully completing their off-campus projects.
The standard model of the proposed new calendar. The dark X areas indicatethe terms on campus, the others either vacation or the off-campus term project
