The Office of the Provost changed the academic calendar for the January term, replacing class on Monday Jan. 16 with class on Saturday, Jan. 7.
The change moved the last day of classes to Friday, Jan. 13 rather than Monday, Jan. 16, which creates a four-day break before spring classes begin.
The Office of the Provost sent this information along with the graduation date for the Class of 2007, which is May 20, 2007, in an e-mail to all of the University's faculty and students Friday.
According to Associate Provost for Academic Support Wynne Stuart, many students misinterpreted the message, believing that the graduation date for 2006 had been changed. This year, graduation will be held May 21, 2006 as previously announced, but the e-mail made the first announcement of the graduation date for the next academic year.
The Office of the Provost made these two distinct announcements in one e-mail because they did not wish to fill up students' and faculty inboxes, Stuart said.
"So much is already planned, and all the reservations people have make it difficult to change the [2006] graduation date so late," Stuart said. "It would be quite an upheaval for us to change it now."
The start date of the January term was not altered to prevent interfering with students' travel plans, she said. January classes will begin Jan. 3 and end Jan. 13.
The administration was faced with the choice of having classes on a Monday or sacrificing a Saturday to end classes earlier. A poll conducted among the faculty teaching during the January term showed a large majority wanted to have the Monday and Tuesday off before the start of classes in the spring semester.
"I think it makes a lot of sense, it would be much more convenient for most students and faculty and it's a nice clean break," said Politics Prof. Larry Sabato, who will be teaching Virginia Government and Politics in the January term.
Sabato said although the change in calendar date would not significantly affect the instruction of the material, a classroom teacher needs to be flexible to change.
With a shortened weekend during the term, his class "will be a bit more rigorous, but it's rigorous anyway," he said. "The students who signed up for this last year were very dedicated, so I have no doubt they will be willing to pitch in a Saturday, too."
When the January term was first launched in 2005, Saturday classes were not needed because of the placement of New Year's Day on the calendar.
"We had 10 weekdays easily in January 2005 to do the 10 classes for J-term to get the right number of course hours, so no Saturday classes were used because we didn't need to," Stuart said.
Since Jan. 16 was also Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, Stuart said the calendar change allows students and faculty to commemorate the holiday.
According to Stuart, these decisions are made by a presidentially-appointed committee that includes deans, faculty members, University staff and students so that all constituencies are given fair representation.
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