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Faced with an unprecedented boom in registration nearly 60 years ago, the University of California aims to create space for more students by switching campus from semester to faster-paced quarters, packing calendars with more shorter classes.
The move was part of a national trend to join state campuses across the United States, working with private universities, including Stanford, which had been operating in quarters since World War I to accommodate students in military training programs.
But today, the quarter is primarily a relic, with around 50 campuses used nationwide, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics.
UC is one of the biggest holdouts with only Berkeley and Merced Campus on its semester calendar and is considering a switch.
“They tried to do this on various campuses,” said Dan Mitchell, professor emeritus at UCLA Anderson School of Management, who arrived in Westwood in 1968 and stopped teaching three years ago. “If they finally do it, they’ll grow up.”
Since last fall, the UC Working Group has studied potential switchovers to semester and hybrid options, and calculated the impact on student success and financial costs for relocating enrollment and class schedules. The group will release their latest report this month and present their findings to UC Systemwide Provost, Academic Senate Chair and Academic Planning Council in the fall.
“The discussion of how UC can improve student experience and support graduate outcomes has raised questions about returning to a common calendar (semester or quarter) to promote system-wide collaboration and cohesion,” the latest report from the Academic Planning Council Workgroup states in the System-wide Academic Calendar.
But the change is complicated. Campus has different start and end dates, exam periods and breaks. Among the benefits of going all semester is the ability to provide access comparable to courses, summer jobs and internships across nine faculty campuses.
The potential moves have been welcomed and criticized by students and faculty. Synchronizing all campuses makes sense for universities where everything shares their names. Some people add that forwarding will also be more seamless.
Supporters say it’s confusing that if undergraduates are in the quarter and some graduate schools continue for semesters, some campuses offer collaborative programs or professors between faculties, universities and schools. For example, UCLA and UC Davis Law Schools track semesters, and their campuses use quarterly overall.
There is also the question of how calendar changes will affect student performance. American Economic Journal: A 2022 research paper, which examined data from hundreds of higher education institutions, found that it could hurt graduation rates in the short term, leading to a longer period of time for certain students, with poor grades before declaring a boy.
One of the biggest drawbacks is the cost. After considering changes in the curriculum, anticipating the required programming, and predicting advice, leadership, communication, operational support and information technology, switching to term is estimated to cost between $288 million and $371 million across the system.
California State’s move to lead Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, the campus based in its last quarter, by 2026 is estimated at $20 million.
When the budget is trimmed, some contracts are not renewed and a system-wide employment freeze is being implemented amid the Trump administration’s cuts.
Ryan Manriquez, who was recently chairman of UC’s Alumni and Specialist Council and worked for UC’s Calendar Working Group, said that although in theory he supports calendar changes, he is not immediately.
“All dollars that universities can use at their disposal now should return to important functions like student services and research,” he graduated from the University of California Berkeley this year with a Masters in Public Policy.
Tomris Kalias Iragul, a graduate of San Diego, California in June with a degree in interdisciplinary computing and arts, said he felt the quarter system hurt them during his internship and recruitment application.
“Because school was finished earlier for the semester, most other students graduated while I was still in class, meaning that those students could start work,” Karaismailoglu said. “I felt uneasy about that.”
Yesenia Pérez, who earned her bachelor’s degree from UC Santa Barbara in June and a master’s degree in technology management on campus in the fall, said she resonated with both sides.
“In a 10-week quarter, you look into content very quickly,” Perez said. “It’s a double-edged sword. If you have a passion for your class, you can learn more in the semester, but if you want to finish it, it’s only 10 weeks.”
Many faculty have expressed their opposition, citing the increased chances of workloads, including shiribi redoing.
“The impact of such changes is potentially significant, logistically, administratively and financially on student learning outcomes and working conditions for faculty/staff,” UC’s faculty meeting is ASNS. He wrote a statement to members this year. The organization called “on all UC faculty members to mobilize and demand the right to learn, discuss and vote on this initiative.”
But for Qingdao, a professor at the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at UC Davis, the transition has been a long delay. Yin said he hopes that savings will offset the initial costs of calendar updates, including a low university-wide enrollment period. He believed that his educational experience would also improve.
“When you open a textbook in the subject area, there are few books that are limited to 10 or less, usually 15-20 chapters,” Yin said in an email. “So what instructors can do with a quarterly system with materials… [is] Cut out ingredients or combine multiple chapters into a week. Therefore, students will not have the opportunity to fully digest and leave them either “malnourished” or overdose in 10 weeks. ”
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