Students and faculty will have several holidays off this Fall in observance of Jewish holidays, and one professor is challenging the amount of time left for classes as a result.
Three-credit classes are required to have 2,250 minutes of total class time, and John Boot, professor of management science and systems, said an abundance of Jewish holidays cause Monday, Wednesday and Friday classes to fall short of that requirement by 20 minutes.
"Problems are created by the asymmetry of the Jewish holidays," said Boot. He said he believes it is a mistake to include the holidays in the calendar, and he is pushing for at least a change of one Tuesday in October to a Monday schedule.
Yom Kippur and Labor Day, occurring on Mondays, cause a shortage in class time.
To remedy the problem the team has chosen to "wrap around the calendar," according to Assistant Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Beth Del Genio. This policy makes the last class day of the semester Monday rather than Friday.
The approach they have taken, according to Grant, is to put together a five-year calendar, which is circulated so that problems may be spotted ahead of time.
"Five years of notice is plenty for anything that might happen," said Grant. "We are very sensitive about working out a calendar that meets the needs of faculty and students, and complies with state standards."
Boot also said not only is the current schedule inconvenient to teachers, but it is also against SUNY guidelines mandating 2,250 hours of class time.
"They lied to faculty and said they discussed it with Albany," said Boot. "I spoke with the State Education Department and they said, 'no, we didn't speak with Buffalo.'"
Kerry S. Grant, vice provost for academic affairs and dean of the graduate school, said the authority to make the schedule lies in the hands of his department, though SUNY has the right to reject it. He said the schedule was cleared by SUNY and the State Department of Education because it was a workable proposal in terms of religious observances, basic requirements of SUNY, and the state and financial aid eligibility.
"We are confined by these principles. The SUNY system and the state recognize the difficulty of all factors involved," said Grant. "The administrator that looked at it said, 'eh, that'll do.'"
Grant said it is strongly recommended that UB doesn't use the mechanism of substituting a Monday class day for a Tuesday class day as proposed by Boot.
"It's a pointless, almost a bureaucratic exercise that does not serve an academic purpose," Grant said.
The procedure was used in spring of 2001, but the Faculty Senate Executive Committee has since voted the plan out.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
