Students checking their exam dates this semester may be surprised to find that some of their tests are scheduled for the weekend after classes end. To adjust for a too-short semester, the university removed this semester's reading days and replaced them with final exams.
The original calendar was changed when the administration discovered it did not fulfill the State Education Department's definition of full-time study: 15 instructional weeks, including examinations.
"When the calendar appeared for this year, several faculty members complained through the Faculty Senate and directly to the provost that they would not have adequate time for instruction in the spring," said Kerry Grant, vice provost for academic affairs and dean of the graduate school.
"UB students would be ineligible for TAP, so a remedy had to be found," said Grant.
To solve the problem, the Faculty Senate and the Office of the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs have extended instructional days through Friday, May 3. Final examination week will begin Saturday, May 4 and continue until Thursday, May 9. To accommodate this change, reading days - the traditional buffer between the end of classes and the beginning of exams - were eliminated.
"Although no one was happy about it, the revised end of semester schedule presented itself as the best of a group of bad alternatives," said Grant.
Eliminating the reading days could be the biggest problem students and teachers face.
"I think the performance on the finals will drop a bit since the students will not have time to reset their minds and focus on the exam," said Samuel Tiras, assistant professor of accounting and law. "I am more concerned with the cancellation of reading days than on the Saturday exams." Tiras teaches MGA 306, "Financial Reporting and Analysis," which has its final scheduled for a Saturday.
Grant, however, did not think the cancellation of the reading days would affect final examination grades.
"There would be no justification for them going down," said Grant. "Certainly no excuse except the wish to deflect personal responsibility. The change in examination schedules has been known since the beginning of the semester. Students have ample time to adjust their preparation timetable to accommodate the changes."
Debbie Lelio, a psychology major, has exams on the Sunday of finals week. "I was kind of annoyed when I found out," said Lelio. "Finals week is the last week to spend with everyone and having to study kind of ruins it."
"I think that because students will not have a break between classes and finals, it may put extra stress on them to prepare and therefore hurt their grades," she added.
According to Tiras, the Saturday exams do not present a direct inconvenience for him, but may for some of his students. "I do have some athletes that have competitions that day," he said.
Competitions are not the only circumstance that could prevent a student from taking an exam on the weekend. State law requires schools to offer accommodation to students who have religious conflicts with the exam days. Students who practice strict religious observance may be excused from taking an exam on the Sabbath.
"The policy of accommodating religious observances extends to the professors as well as to the students," said Grant. "In some circumstances the schedule could be changed as a result of the need for observance on the part of the faculty member. Students should be polled and notified well ahead of time in such a circumstance."
In addition to the administration's efforts to spread the word about the finals, professors were asked to notify students in their classes about the schedule change.
"There were articles last semester in the Reporter as well as the Spectrum," said Grant. "Ads have been placed or will be placed in the Spectrum on three occasions."
The Office of Student Affairs is assisting with informing students. Grant said an alert student should currently be aware of the changes made from the information already disseminated.
In an effort to prevent future mishaps, the university has changed its process for designing the calendar.
"This semester, the calendar for the next several years was developed in my office," said Grant. "[It will be] provided to the Faculty Senate, the Professional Staff Senate and the president of the Student Association to allow an opportunity of review."
