Academic Calendar Task Force

On June 13, 2008, President Eileen Wilson‐Oyelaran appointed the Kalamazoo College Academic Calendar Task Force, chaired by Provost Mickey McDonald. At the first meeting the committee focused on brainstorming challenges and opportunities of our current calendar, and brainstormed without evaluation possible alternatives. These models included various hybrids of the current three quarter model; various hybrids of a semester‐based model, including those with a one‐month block at either end of a semester, and/or split semesters; a block model; hybrid models that included combinations of blocks, quarters, and/or semesters. In subsequent meetings we began to discuss various pros and cons of the alternatives, bringing into our deliberations prior conversations of the calendar that took place during the DITF process, paying close attention to the issues raised in the DITF report, and attempting to maintain many of the opportunities gained with our current calendar model while trying to address the challenges.