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MCC Daily Tribune

The Making of an Academic Calendar

SUNY requires that its 64 colleges and universities embrace the Carnegie Unit of measure that stipulates "a semester credit hour is normally granted for satisfactory completion of one 50-minute session of classroom instruction per week for a semester of not less than fifteen weeks" (SUNY Policy: Credit/Contact Hour, document #1305). Over the past few years, all SUNY schools have reviewed their academic calendars and course seat times to ensure courses are meeting the seat-time standard as defined by the Carnegie Unit.

MCC's review revealed that the fall and spring semesters had a different number of weeks; most courses taught in the fall were not meeting for the number of contact hours listed when faculty-proposed courses were approved through our established curriculum processes. Our review and subsequent academic calendar adoptions ensured that classes that meet once weekly have 15 meeting times--15 Mondays, 15 Tuesdays, 15 Wednesdays, etc.--during each semester, thereby ensuring sufficient instructional times for all course offerings.

Some local colleges such as Finger Lakes Community College, appear to have academic calendars that are shorter than MCC's (August 26-December 21) because they have opted to forgo a separate week for final examinations. FLCC starts September 3 and ends December 22, providing the required number of classes for each day of the week. If FLCC decided to include a separate final exam week, they would have a calendar more closely mirroring MCC's. On the other hand, GCC starts instruction on August 18 (a week before MCC) and ends on December 6, but has additional days for finals, similar to MCC, concluding those on December 11. In all of these scenarios, schools must comply with SUNY, New York State Education Department and Middle States Commission on Higher Education requirements. The MCC Faculty Senate discussed no longer holding a separate final exam week, but this was not supported by a majority of Senators at that time.

In revising the academic calendar, some class times were adjusted slightly--by five minutes--in order to ensure all MCC courses are meeting the required Carnegie Unit seat time requirement. Originally, the instructional time for Tuesday-Thursday classes was longer than Monday-Wednesday-Friday classes, so the reduction of five minutes corrected this.

Although they are subject to accreditation and other regulations, private colleges such as the University of Rochester are able to set an academic calendar in accordance with their boards' and programs' needs.

My thanks to the Faculty Senate for its work in receiving and reviewing the academic calendar.

Andrea Wade
Academic Services
08/22/2019