Traditional Calendar: No

The faculty late last month resoundingly defeated a move by History Professor Charles Wood and the other faculty members on the Committee on the Quality of Student Life to recommend that the trustees set up a feasibility study of a return to the conventional fall-winterspring academic calendar. After lengthy and reasonably amiable discussion, the Wood proposal was defeated by a 102-24 vote.

The Wood motion, presented at an earlier faculty meeting, included no judgment on how the traditional academic year should be divided into quarters or semesters proposing only a look into the possibility of dropping the mandatory summer term. Among the "whereas's" preceding the "therefore" were the conclusion of the 1978 evaluation team of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges that "all the areas of stress [at the College] are related to the Dartmouth Plan," with its "relentless academic pace" and its disruption of social relationships; the judgment that, considered only pedagogically and educationally, "the disadvantages of the year-round system outweigh the advantages"; and the concern shared by faculty members of the student life committee over what they see as the detrimental effects of year-round operation.

The faculty's action on the Wood motion was part of the continuing debate on the report submitted last winter by the Committee on Curriculum and YearRound Operation. That report endorsed year-round operation but proposed a trimester system in place of the present ten-week quarter schedule.

At the intervening week's faculty meeting, between the introduction of the Wood proposal and its defeat, President Kemeny in the course of his ten-year report mounted a counter-offensive against consideration of a return to the traditional three-season calendar. Such a move, he said, would result in either an "enormous building project" or a severe cut in the size of the student body.