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Press Release:
Ohio State trustees approve switch to semesters in 2012
The Ohio State University will soon join the ranks of Ohio’s other 12 four-year universities when it switches to a semester-based academic year in Autumn 2012.
The university’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously today (4/3) to adopt a resolution approving the conversion from an academic quarter system, in place since 1922, to a semester calendar.
“Ohio State is acting partially in response to the University System of Ohio’s Strategic Plan for Higher Education, 2008-2017, which calls for a common academic calendar across all state universities,” said Ohio State Provost Joseph A. Alutto. “But the move to semesters has been seriously considered for some time.”
In 1991, during E. Gordon Gee’s first tenure as university president, the prospect of a calendar conversion was rejected in the committee stage. In 2001, the conversion was approved by committee, but tabled by the University Senate, citing an inadequate student information system at the time. The university has since implemented a new, modern system.
“The conversion to semesters will allow us to better integrate with other universities, facilitating the transfer of credits and students,” said Alutto.
Among the benefits to students will be an earlier entrance into the job market following graduation. The current quarter system keeps students in school a month longer than their competitors for jobs from semester schools. The conversion will also facilitate opportunities for student research, international study, internships, service learning and other specialized learning experiences for undergraduate and graduate students.
According to the final report of the Ad-Hoc Committee on Semesters, formed last year to study the feasibility of a switch, the conversion process should be complete by 2012 at an estimated cost of $8.7 million to $11.2 million for such expenses as technology modifications, course redesign and curriculum alignment.
The Committee for Enrollment and Student Progress is working on the structure of the overall academic calendar, which will be voted on by the University Senate. Trustees will then vote on the rule change to accommodate that calendar.
The Office of Academic Affairs, the University Senate and the academic units – including the regional campuses – will begin identifying how to implement the changes. In addition, Ohio State will work with other universities that are changing to semesters, including Wright State, Ohio University, the University of Cincinnati and Columbus State Community College.
As someone who teaches at Ohio State, I welcome it. Ten-week quarters have their benefits, but too often it feels like we’re just rushing students through the course, with no chance to really discuss things and engage the material. And I know that’s just one of reasons why we’re switching to semesters.
my reason for opposition is probably trivial to most, but I feel that after having only 10 weeks to have to pay attention to the same type of material, and losing steam at week 6, having to keep attention for 14 weeks is going to be hard, still probably losing steam at week 6, which will be dangerous for the remaining more than half of the semester.
oh well though. hopefully that will be my last section of class at school forever. :)
As an OSU alum, I’ll note that I was a supporter of the quarter calendar, and one of the voices against the conversion when the issue came up at various student fora throughout my time there (2000-2004). I thought it had a lot of advantages. On the other hand, with OSU the last remaining holdout among Ohio’s public universities on the quarter system, I can understand how the conformist pressure would be severe even before Strickland’s plan for a standard state school calendar. In addition, I can understand why some faculty were pushing for it.
I liked the quarter system, among other reasons, because (a) it made summer classes a lot easier to arrange–the summer was basically the length of a fourth academic quarter (10 instructional weeks + 1 of finals); (b) ambitious students taking course overloads could get in 12 classes/year instead of 10; (c) Spring Break was an actual holiday (between Winter and Spring Quarters), not merely additional lab or term paper time; (d) the “real world” tends to run on quarters (IBM doesn’t announce second semester earnings). (I had a substantially longer list of reasons in school, I’m just not going to bore everyone with them here.)
It is about time they conformed to rest of the nation. As a kent state grad it was an advantage getting out in May with a month jump start at summer jobs before OSU students. Semesters allowed more in-depth learning. Isn’t the point at being in school to learn the material not the amount of courses. The students will adapt as others have. They will see an advantage as transferring with other schools will become easier.
I’ve done both quarters and semesters. I probably prefer semesters. I’ve found working 20-30 hours a week and school can be rough with only 10 weeks in a quarter. If you get sick for a week and miss class, it can be very difficult to make up for it.
Well, one huge benefit of the quarter system is that it allows for OSU to attract and keep high-quality faculty that it would not normally be able to have. This is because professors can flex time at the university. They are required to teach 4 classes a year, but if they teach 2 in the fall and 2 in the winter, they get six months off for research. Or, they can spread it out in other ways. Prepare to hear stories about OSU losing some seriously high-quality profs to other schools because of this change.
So they rewrite the contracts and make it applicable to semesters? I really don’t think this is a hard thing to work through.
they would lose those faculty to where? UM, UNC, Berkeley, Yale, Harvard, Penn? those are all on semester. so unless all of those faculty plan on offers from Northwestern, Carleton or the few remaining schools on a quarter system, I am not sure where they plan to flock to?
I’ll be out before the conversion, so I guess I don’t have to worry about the adjustment.
To lifeontwowheels: its simply not that easy, and you still have teaching requirements you must meet. If you start changing contracts and teaching obligations, you’ll lose classes, etc.
To dru: Yes…to semester schools with a lot more money and more prestige where faculty are required to teach a lot less. Social science departments, humanities, etc. don’t have such a thing as a research professor at OSU…those schools do.
As someone recently hired as an Asst. Professor, I can tell you that this is the #1 problem faculty have with this and why the vote was put through faculty senate (which the university administration handpicks).
I think if this was being done immediately, it would be much harder. 2 years for the switch gives plenty of time for faculty input on the new system, time to rewrite those contracts and time to find new faculty members if folks do leave.
faculty can certainly be poached, UW Madison has been dealing with this lately. but i think the frontier is changing, and faculty will find fewer options with reduced teaching loads in exchange for research. i am not arguing that is right, but i also think given this context that faculty flight stories will be few and far between in face of current budget realities.
At the risk of insulting some, isn’t it the students that really matter in all of this?
I would rather lose 12 professors who are top researchers and gain 12 professors who want to teach and want to be involved in their students success.
@ lifeontwowheels – there is a lot of merit to your point. but i would add that the history of universities was students seeking out learned mentors (faculty). not the reverse. it is true in the modern sense that many a university employee would be jobless w/o students, but that doesn’t outright validate the argument that it’s all about the students. there is a much larger context of which students, and student academic success, are a major part.
also, universities need money to run, and those can come from a number of sources. related to your point, students equal tuition dollars. but it is also true that many students use rankings, etc… to determine their school choice. one important part of that ranking criteria is faculty and more importantly their research output. it might not matter in the actual undergrad instruction, but it matters a lot in the rankings. which leads to another huge source of revenue associated to research, which is research dollars through grants, copyrights, intellectual property and patents, partnerships with private industry etc… Without the research angle, universities like OSU would be in trouble. at teaching colleges this might be less of a focus, but still with importance. at all schools the funding this creates allows for the resources, including additional teaching faculty, that enhance classroom instruction.
One thing I have loved at CSCC (apples to oranges with the apparent size difference between it and OSU, I know) is that it seems like a number of the instructors are more part time/adjunct faculty and balance their time between teaching as a steady income and doing research or field work.
A few of the great instructors I have had at CSCC really come off as very knowledgeable and very passionate from their fieldwork and research. But the two balance each other out. I don’t know the exact working arrangement at CSCC (please enlighten me if someone does), but I believe that there is a model there that could set up OSU for success in the switch.
Why not take the professors who are more interested in the research aspect and move them more to the graduate studies, where they can work with smaller bodies of students and work within their research experience. Provides a strong graduate program and keeps OSU tops in research. Move professors more interested in teaching to underground, and balance with part time faculty that can provide quality education and some time to pursue field work/research.
It’s been a long day, so I apologize if this is incoherent ramblings.
@lifeontwowheels – this has become a conversation of 2, but so long as we’re both on it, i’d be remiss not to point out that the move towards more adjunct faculty is not a healthy move in academia. perhaps healthy for the bottom line, but not for overall enterprise. adjunct usually implies – part time, paid by course not by salary, lack of benefits for health and retirement, and zero job stability. it can work well in certain instances – e.g. a local Psychologist who comes in to teach Adolescent Psych, a business executive who contracts to teach Accounting, or a practicing artist teaching studios in their medium. for them it is an extra paycheck and a chance to share their relevant experience. however for most adjuncts, it means earning a PhD to make an hourly wage, commute between mulitple schools on a daily basis, have little time to research and publish (which is imperative for the career), stress over academic freedom, and to never have a stable career. my guess is that none of the students at CSCC/OSU are pursuing a AA/AS or BA/BS degree with the aspiration of part time work with no benefits. why would we then seek to create a ‘balance’ of faculty with MAs and PhDs to do so? for the majority of adjuncts it is a dispiriting existence that allows neither a ‘steady income’ or time for ‘doing research or field work.’ (I should state that I am not faculty, only someone who contemplated it.)
I understand where you are coming from.
I really see this as an opportunity for OSU to rebrand-if that’s the right word-themselves a bit. Given the state of our current economy, you are finding more students who would list a private institution as a first or second choice school attending OSU out of a practical compromise with the financial reality.
I believe, from my experience, that OSU tends to suffer (though, it does benefit, don’t get me wrong) from how large on an institution it is. Switching to semesters gives the administration a perfect time to revaluate the role of the faculty between teaching and research; the current academic program; the current student network and really tweak it to make themselves competitive long into the future for those students who would prefer smaller class sizes and an expanded relationship with their educators.
Depending on where this heads and how OSU changes with semesters, if they found a significant divide-even the risk of losing staff-amongst faculty, it’s an opportunity to realign and still remain strong in both academics and research. When I mentioned the possibility of utilizing adjunct faculty to fill the gaps, I was speaking more to the idea of what you said above: local individuals with the experience and knowledge to provide quality instruction.
From my experience at 3 colleges (4 starting this summer) and 4 campuses, my best experiences have come from faculty who were there to teach, not add to their bibliography. Very broad generalization, I know. What sells me on an individual instructor is their ability to engage their class, their breadth of knowledge and their passion. The dirty secret I have learned in the last 5 years is that you don’t pick your undergrad-despite what the high school guidance counselor says-on a school’s particular strength in your intended major. You’ll change it half a dozen times. Your intended career path another 12.
OSU stands to win big in this switch if they can retain the excellent faculty they have; allow that faculty to either pursue research and instruction with upper level and graduate students or allow them to work with undergrads and focus on teaching. Fill the gaps with quality, local talent with experience and knowledge to continue to provide excellent educational opportunities to undergrads and possible reduce class sizes for those first year classes. (And of course I don’t expect a 300 student lecture to reduce to 30. 50-100 class size wouldn’t be bad, though)