SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

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S.98-76

Office of the Registrar

MEMORANDUM

To:

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Senate

From:

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Alison Watt, Secretary, SCAR

Subject

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Semester Schedule and Calendar Committee suggestion

Date: ?

22 September, 1998

At Senate on 14 September 1998 some members of Senate raised concerns about the

determination of the schedule of the Academic Calendar of Events for the fall

semester 1998.

Senate established rules regarding semester scheduling in 1992 in a report on

Statutory Holiday Observance. Senate approved the following motion:

"that in those semesters where there are three Monday holidays, or in

any semester that begins on a Tuesday, the semester will end on the

Monday of week 14. However, in order to accommodate the

minimum requirements for the examination schedule (10 days for

exams, 4 days for submission of grades, 2 days to complete semester-end

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evaluations and mailing of grades), it would sometimes be necessary to

have only one day between the end of classes on the Monday and the

start of exams."

In 1998/99 the lateness of Labour Day (7th September) resulted in insufficient

numbers of days for the Registrar to be able to accommodate, before Christmas Day,

all the requirements specified by Senate. This resulted in the exams schedule

starting on December

7,

rather than December 9.

It was suggested that Senate should consider a University Calendar Committee in

order that Senators could provide input on these matters. An alternative would be

for this task to be added to the terms of reference of an existing Senate committee.

It was agreed that this matter would come to SCAR for consideration. However, the

Registrar was absent and SCAR determined that it would carry over further

discussion on this item to the next meeting of SCAR at which time Mr. Heath could

be present for discussion on various suitable options. Results of the SCAR

discussions on 20 October will be conveyed to the Senate meeting on 2 November,

1998.

c:

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W.R. Heath