COMMITTEE:                      Calendar

MEETING DATE:                November 5, 2003

PERSON PRESIDING:         John Crammer

ATTENDEES:       Brenda Eastman, Jeff Phipps, John Crammer, Rebecca Powers, Punam Madhok, Stephen Dock

EX-OFFICIO:        Angela Anderson, Austin Bunch, Mary Farwell

The meeting was called to order at 3:30 pm in Bate 3201 by John Crammer.  As a new member of the committee, Austin Bunch introduced himself.  The minutes from the September and October meetings were considered.  Jeff Phipps moved, Stephen Dock seconded, approval of the minutes of the September 8 meeting with corrections.  Motion passed.  Phipps moved, Dock seconded, approval of the minutes of the October 1 meeting.  Motion passed.  Mary Farwell moved, Phipps seconded, approval of the minutes of the October 8 meeting as corrected.  Motion passed.

Crammer said that he had asked the college boards about dates for the PSAT.  They had dates for Fall 2004 but not for 2005.  Farwell noted that from past years it appears that they use the second week of October.  Based on this, using the third Monday/Tuesday of October for fall break should make it easier to coordinate that break with Pitt County Schools.  Bunch asked about the person to contact at Pitt Community College concerning calendars.  Crammer replied that Judith Kasperek is the person to contact at PCC.

The committee next decided to finalize the dates for Spring Break.  Crammer said that Kasperek had asked about the date to help in synchronizing calendars; she had also told him that if PCC gets only one day off for Easter they have Easter Monday as a holiday.  The dates for spring break are affected by the dates for Founders week.  Bunch told the committee that Founders week is the last full week of March.  The committee agreed to have spring break Sunday, March 12 to Sunday, March 19.  Angela Anderson pointed out that the sample calendar for spring 2006 has registration during Founders week which would prevent some administrative staff from taking part in activities during that week.  After some discussion it was agreed to move advising to the week before spring break and registration the week after spring break.  Anderson explained that this helps students and parents with registration.  It was also agreed to list Founders week in the academic calendar.

Rebecca Powers asked why the last day to add a class was so far into the semester.  Anderson pointed out that the last day to add is the sixth day of classes.  Several committee members agreed that an earlier date might be better.  There are some problems having students starting class one week later than most students.  This issue will be put on the agenda for further discussion.

Crammer reported that he had contacted Chemistry and Foreign Languages about the common exam schedule.  Foreign Languages replied that they would like their two days of exams to be within 48 hours of each other.  Dock supported the importance of coordinating the days for their exams.  The Chair of the Chemistry department has contacted the chemistry faculty but has not yet reported back the results.  The committee agreed that since there are five common exam days they should be the first five days of the exam period.  The committee considered putting the common exams for those departments using two days on consecutive days and rotating them as a unit to keep them together.

Concerning the discussion at last month’s meeting about the requirement of turning in grades within 48 hours of the exam, the Admissions and Retention committee is making a recommendation to the Faculty Senate.  The committee discussed the status of the 11-week summer session that is scheduled for summer 2004.  Anderson told the committee that Clayton Sessoms had asked her about course loads for students taking blended terms (in both a 5-week session and an 11-week session).  There are also questions that need to be handled by payroll concerning faculty who are teaching in the summer.  Farwell said that there are some courses that her department would like to teach during the eleven week session that they would rather not teach in a five week session.  It was stated that the Admissions and Retention committee might be a more appropriate committee for addressing these problems.

The committee looked at a sheet summarizing past calendars with information such as starting dates, holidays, and exam dates.  The 2005-2006 calendar the committee is working on closely resembles the 1994-1995 dates.  There is support for having a reading day in the fall calendar for 2005.  Late grades in the Fall semester are more of a problem than in the spring.

The next committee meeting will be Wednesday, December 3, 2002 at 4:00.  The committee will continuing discussing Reading Day, the general form of the 2005-2006 calendar, and reviewing the last day to add a class..

Meeting adjourned at 4:30 pm.