COMMITTEE:                      Calendar

MEETING DATE:                November 14, 2005

PERSON PRESIDING:         John Crammer

ATTENDEES:       Jonathan Dembo,  Punam Madhok, Rebecca Powers, John Crammer

EX-OFFICIO:        Austin Bunch, Brandy Piner (for Angela Anderson), Jenilyn Turner

ACTIONS OF THE MEETING:

The meeting was called to order at 3:30 pm in Rawl 105 by John Crammer.   The committee waited for enough regular members to have a quorum.  Stephen Dock and Trey Martindale have not attended any of the meetings so far this year. 

The committee agreed to wait until the next meeting to consider the minutes of the October meeting (this will allow Shanan Gibson and Aaron Lucier to suggest changes to the minutes).

Austin Bunch reported that during the summer the University Executive Council reacted to concerns that neither Veterans Day nor Memorial Day are observed a university holidays.  They feel that Memorial Day is appropriate to consider as a university holiday and asked if the academic calendar could be built around Memorial Day as a holiday. However, there are concerns that taking Memorial day as a holiday would require that one day be removed from the winter holiday.  Between Christmas and New Years Day the university is officially closed (there is one day it is officially open-Friday last year-but typically nobody is here).  If Memorial Day were a staff holiday, staff might be required to take a personal day during the Christmas break and some staff may be opposed to this schedule. Bunch pointed out that Pitt Community College forces people to take personal leave during two weeks at Christmas; some other universities also do this.  There seem to be two choices:  staff can take an optional personal day or they can be required to take a personal day. 

Brandy Piner said that on Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day, veterans come to the Registrar’s Office and ask whether East Carolina University cares about veterans.  Bunch noted that ECU celebrates veterans during Founders Week using the victory bell.  It was suggested that something be done to celebrate veterans on campus on November 11. 

Another question raised concerns how a Memorial Day holiday would affect the academic calendar.  For the past few years, classes have not met on Memorial Day during the first summer session.  At the October meeting, the committee discussed some of the scheduling problems when Memorial Day is a holiday.  Piner said that the people doing orientation for new students at the beginning of first summer session want orientation to stay on Monday but will accommodate changes.  About 100 students are involved in the orientation session.  Powers noted that the discussion during the October meeting revealed that conflicts in scheduling the summer sessions involve housing issues and the administration’s decision about use of housing during the summer.  A key issue is that the number of available rooms in summer school is limited, so it forces the students to move in/out within a very short time frame.  Jonathan Dembo said that part of the problem with housing in the summer is due to conflicts with camps and conferences.  Crammer asked whether the committee could get information on camps and conferences last summer. Piner said that Angela Anderson talked with Don Joyner about revisions to the summer school schedule and he would like it to stay the same.  Powers asked about doing first summer session orientation on the weekend before summer school starts. 

Next, the committee worked on the proposal for making up lost class days.  Dembo asked why the proposal included methods for making up classes when the committee was not asked to do methods.  After discussion on what to do about the methods for making up classes, the committee agreed to put it as a third part of the proposal and simplify the wording by not giving examples but to simply state that methods would have to be approved by the unit administrator.  The new version of the proposal will be distributed to the committee in order to have it voted on at the December meeting and, if approved, submitted to the Faculty Senate at their January meeting.

The committee briefly looked at the starting point for the 2007-2008 calendar to be worked on starting at the next meeting.  The committee needs to consider what it wants to do with Memorial Day, registration day, and whether there should, or can be, a break between summer sessions.  Powers pointed out that Crammer had both March 17 and 19 as Mondays after spring break in 2008; he will fix it.

The next meeting will be at 3:30 Monday, December 12.  The committee will vote on the minutes of the October meeting and finish work on the policy for making up lost class days.  The committee will also work on the calendar for the 2007-2008 Academic Year.

Meeting adjourned at 4:40 pm.