As many of you have heard the rumors, UC is considering converting to semesters. Currently, the majority of students in Ohio are on the quarter system, while the vast majority of students in the US are on semesters.In mid-May, a UC task force that was commissioned to present a conversion plan presented a draft to President Zimpher to consider. One of the members on this force, RWC’s Dr. Janice Denton, has been giving periodic updates to RWC faculty throughout the academic year. The plan was to make the conversion around 2011.
Some of the benefits of this conversion include those students who are transferring from schools on semesters to RWC and vice versa. With this conversion, advisors should have much less of a hassle when determining which credits from the student’s previous school would transfer into RWC.
Students would also be out of school earlier and would be able to look for summer jobs sooner. Teachers will have approximately 70 teaching days per semester or about 3.5-4 months of instruction. Summer breaks would start early in May and would end in late August. The fall semester would start approximately a week after Labor Day and end in December. In January, the Spring semester would start.
One of the disadvantages of this plan is a concern to those schools in Ohio on quarters. These universities are not thoroughly convinced that such a change would be good. Unless other schools can assure them that they would convert, they themselves would not. According to Dr. Frank Wray, Chair of the Faculty Executive Committee, even though the vast majority of colleges in the US are on semesters, the majority of students in Ohio are on quarters.
Another issue, which has always existed since the emergence of educational institutions is the cost involved. For UC alone the task force estimated it would cost 13 million dollars over three years to implement the conversion plan. Other schools like Ohio State, whose size is greater than UC, would face even greater costs.
Teachers will also have to change their curriculum and academic programs. For example, the Object Orientated Programming I & II classes, which are normally offered in quarters incessantly, could potentially be combined into one. Classes who have a three-quarter sequence, like English Comp I, II, & III, would be possibly combined into two courses. Unfortunately, teachers will not get paid extra while they make the changes to the classes, which will take a considerable amount of time.