51 CommentsESC President Whitney Green reported that the faculty have submitted an independent study day proposal to the University Senate to eliminate the election day break and convert those days to study days. Their proposal also calls for holding finals on weekends.
Senator Rajat Roy commented that when student proposals come up against faculty proposals in the Senate, they are more likely to lose, thus the faculty’s plan effectively undermines the proposal being worked on by the student councils that called for starting classes before labor day as a solution to the calendar problems.
-SVZ
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51 Comments
@exams on weekends? that is un fucking acceptable
@... see here, this is a real calendar:
http://opa.berkeley.edu/AcademicCalendar/calendardisp.aspx?terms=2009C
it really is that simple. why does columbia have to fuck up something so incredibly simple?
@... http://www.yale.edu/yalecollege/academics/calendar/10_11.html
Yale could figure it out too.
Seriously, can we please have a protest?
@The Berkeley calendar.. ..is absolutely perfect. Their calendar is simple, gives plenty of study time, and solves the problem. I think Columbia needs to take a look.
Starting early = the vastly superior solution.
@Anonymous I think we should start a week earlier before Labor Day, still get Election Day break, and get out one week earlier so we don’t have to buy expensive plane tickets. That makes it so no school days are lost or gained.
@... no kidding, this is the easiest thing to do. faculty and staff, get off your high horses and use that link to schedule day care for your children. who are the customers here? I believe it is me, sitting in my mcbain shaft double, who has a right to leave this place to go see my family at christmas time.
@Labor Day By starting Labor Day weekend, flights are more expensive than they would be a week earlier, anyway. It would save the students who aren’t from the tri-state area a lot of money at both the beginning and the end of the semester if they were to move the semester up a week.
And honestly, I’m sure there are plenty of responsible students who could babysit for professors if it was needed for that week before labor day. I definitely know people who babysit for professors.
@i want to know the names of the faculty who are proposing this
so we can send protest emails to them individually.
@guys can we please stop pussyfooting around the real issues here and have a real discussion here?
…
we need time-turners – prezbo, get on your it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNBLoHbm7Jg
@like +1
@Anonymous Can we please have a protest? This is one cause I can really get behind.
@Anonymous WE have so few days off in the fall semester because our Fridays are so easy and laid back..
@speak for yourself. I have never had a free Friday at Columbia, between classes, recitations, and labwork. If anything, Friday is one of my most stressful days.
(interestingly, my recaptcha is “diverts school”)
@yeah but... …on the whole, for the majority of undergrads, fridays are much lower key days than the rest of the week. I know science majors (and people taking languages) often have a fully day of class/lab, but I haven’t had a Friday class in 3 years. Talking to my friends at other schools, this is definitely something pretty unique to Columbia, as most of my friends elsewhere have classes regularly on Friday.
@Anonymous Yes, but if you calculate the number of hours the average Columbia student spends in class, and compare it with someone taking a comparable number of classes elsewhere, you will usually find that the Columbia student spends a ridiculous amount of time in class. Not to even touch upon the amount of time that needs to be spent on hw, studying etc. So Fridays off (I have yet to have a class on a Friday) doesn’t change as much as you think.
@Ask California Sounds like it’s protesting season.
@Anonymous HAHA This school is the absolute most fucking ridiculous institute ever created. “Solutions” from weekend exams to getting rid of Election Day break to taking exams after Christmas break? Does any of this actually make any sense?! And all because it’s an “inconvenience” for professors? I’m pretty sure WE are the ones who are paying this school, not them.
@sorry but tuition is pennies compared to grant income (at least in SEAS)
@explain, please. try as i might, i’ve never been able to figure out why columbia likes to be so antagonistic to our happiness. is this payback for original sin? is that what’s going on here?
@man, fuck this.
@Anonymous Honestly, the faculty’s claims that they’ll be “thoroughly inconvenienced” by starting a few days earlier (in the latest draft of the proposal, we wouldn’t even start a full week earlier, as we basically just have to get that last Monday in so as to not have to make it up as the last day of classes) is complete rubbish. They get an allotted amount of free day care hours (rumored to be in the 100s for EACH faculty member) already, and almost the entire faculty population already uses those free hours in the days before Labor Day, as most of them are already prepping for classes. Knowing this, my only hypothesis for why the faculty are opposing starting earlier and supporting some sort of removal of the already few breaks we have, is one of pure elitism and a holier-than-thou attitude. Literally, there is no reason why they should be against starting earlier, as they can only benefit from not having to grade so close to holiday/family occasions and they basically already treat their schedules as if school starts that week before Labor Day as they use it for prep time. It’s depressing to even write, but I see it as a pure and simple superiority complex played out on an unfortunately large and incredibly important stage. Yes, faculty, we can have good ideas and we also realize the importance of being able to vote as a demonstration of democracy. Sorry that we don’t live 400 feet from our polling station, but you’re not the only ones here. In fact, you’re not even close to the majority…but we’ll still give you more Senate seats than us (another issue for another time)
@you must be joking faculty do not get any free daycare hours. This rumor is utterly that – a rumor. Speaking as a faculty member with small children I can tell you we each pay market rates for the child care, every hour.
And the faculty who need daycare (that is, those who have small children) are generally untenured junior faculty who have no time for fussing with these issues or whether anyone “gets” a day, since every faculty member spends the election holiday WORKING. We are not off to Cote d’Azur in August but rather trying to finish that book, experiment or paper so that we can keep our jobs.
@I don't care if you're faculty You think we’re all going to Cote D’Azur? Get off your fucking high horse and recognize that we drop more money on the plane tickets than starting earlier would cost anyone
@I'm a faculty member http://worklife.columbia.edu/backup-care
One link, one exposed lie. As a fellow member of the faculty, I’d appreciate if you didn’t try to deceive the students. It only hinders our case.
@wait what? faculty members read bwog? by faculty member do you mean like… uni writing grad student teacher status or adjunct lecturer status or Eric Foner status? I’m so intrigued!!
@Beezly Kiernan I’d prefer Election Day Break to two more study days, but I don’t have to fly home for the holidays.
If the faculty’s main argument for starting the semester after Labor Day is that some of them would have to pay for day care during the week before NYC public schools open, then there’s probably an efficient solution. I would imagine that the extra fares students had to pay to leave NY so close to Christmas exceed the cost of day care for the younger children of faculty who go to public schools, and who probably number around a hundred, if that. So a subsidy for faculty with students in public schools, paid for by a fairly small increase in tuition, would likely make everyone better off. Of course, we could also create a program in which students babysit the kids at little to no cost to the student body, again making everyone better off. Don’t give up, students on the Senate!
@Anonymous that’s probably right. I would pay more to have more time.
@Anonymous spoken like a true economics major, well done!
@ZACA /owned. End of discussion
@Anonymous This is beyond ridiculous. The only reason we’re not doing what almost every other university seems to do, and which got our counterparts at other schools done with finals well before Christmas–start just a few days before Labor Day–is because the faculty complained that they wanted to keep those days off at the end of the summer. Now it’s the faculty asking us to give up our much-needed mid-semester break to fix the scheduling fuck-up? Not pleased.
I was actually surprised how many comments I read back in December calling for Columbia to dump the Election Day break because it’s stupid and no other school does it anyway. Um, right…that’s because other schools get Columbus Day off. It’s the same difference. What the faculty wants to do now is make us go from early September to late November, with Election Day break replaced with…nothing. So congrats to all who called Election Day useless, and enjoy spending that Monday and Tuesday in class.
@Hey! The idea is to mitigate two very pressing problems:
1) That there are not enough days for exams
2) That exams last so late into December, thus forcing students who wish to return home to pay more for plane tickets.
There are various combinations of fixing the problem but the students and faculty need to come to a compromise upon which both parties can agree.
@WHY???? If the faculty really did care, they wouldn’t be cramming 5 exams and a paper in one week, or for the English/History majors, three papers and a shit ton of reading in a week. This is cruel and unusual punishment.
@Anonymous Finals on weekends and no Election Day break? It seems like whatever way they go about organizing the calendar, they’re determined to stuff a semester’s worth of work into the shortest interval possible. I’m pretty tolerant of administrative pain-in-the-assery, but this prospect is really alarming.
@I'm impressed that no one has bitched about the idea to put exams on weekends. That would be awful too. But seriously, taking away election day weekend would be a super big problem.
How about they just start a week earlier? Why does Labor Day matter more than Election Day?
@Anonymous I am bitching. That’s just as bad. It’s still taking away time to study. Adding two days at the beginning of the week and then taking away the 2 weekend days accomplishes absolutely nothing, plus it would just be too complicated with all the students who have religious obligations.
@Fuck Religious obligations. I’m an atheist and I don’t believe in exams on the weekend.
@Anonymous Well I’m with you on that one.
@Seriously? Right, because we’re not enough like sleep-deprived, overworked zombies already… Thanks faculty. Way to support your students…
@ummm faculty don’t care for shit
@I think that I cannot believe they want to take away our fall “break”. It is two days. Most schools get at least a week. This is ridiculous. We had four days off in the entire fall semester! Do not make it two.
@Hahahahahahaha This is fuckin hilarious. There are TWO DAYS that we have off in the entire depressing fall semester, and they wanna take them away from us? Hahahahahahaha
@what the fuck why can’t we just get more days off like other normal schools? oh my god, seriously, columbia faculty, do you want us to turn into cornell? Look the fuck around! The majority of us are over worked and get very little sleep and now you want to take the break that we do get away from us? This is fucken Marie Antoinette shit! How can we eat cake madam, if we have no bread??!?!
@don't push me Election day Break=not go insane card. You want to take that away from me, Columbia??? Do you??? Huh? Do you??!!
@Fuck that Gee, that’d be great not having the election day break.
@"more likely to loose"? really? nevertheless this proposal sounds like a good thing.
@BULLSHIT We got the Election Day Break from an agreement made by SDS and Columbia during the riots. It reflects our respect for democracy and political activity. If this gets passed and we lose that magical Tuesday, I CALL FOR MORE RIOTS!!!
@Anonymous The faculty proposal calls for having class on the Monday of what would have been election day break, but not on the Tuesday.
@That Makes no sense. The whole point is that its a long weekend. Where are we gonna go with a Tuesday off?
@Anonymous aka just don’t go to class on Monday
@absolute bullshit They’re not taking away Election Break.
@you're joking no election break?
Berkley’s rioting over tuition increases…. let’s see if Columbia students can muster enough interest to overcome their apathy and protest over losing our chance to participate in local civic affairs in our hometowns (which was the original purpose of the break)