Bok to Set Up University Wide Calendar Study

President Bok will establish a University-wide committee on calendar revision this Fall in a move which may resurrect the "early semester" proposal rejected last Spring by the Faculty.

The committee, set up on the recommendation of Dean Rosovsky, will include representatives from Bok's office, the faculties, and MIT. MIT uses an "early semester" system.

Rosovsky said yesterday he will appoint the representative from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

The Faculty rejected an early semester proposal last May primarily because of the plan's lack of coordination with other faculties and schools, a criticism Bok met by choosing a University-wide group.

The calendar proposed last year received overwhelming support in a student poll as well as the unanimous endorsement from the Faculty Council. It would have moved the beginning of the first semester back two weeks, enough to allow the completion of Fall exams before a three-week Christmas vacation.

The altered Spring term would have ended in mid-May, two to three weeks before it now does.

However, in Rosovsky's words, the Faculty debate led a majority of those present to conclude that the calendar issue was "far more complicated than it appeared to be." The early semester proposal was then recommitted to the Faculty Council, making any calendar change before September 1974 impossible.

Rosovsky said that he expects the committee's report to be filed before June. If the committee does recommend a calendar change, its proposal must gain Faculty approval by October 1974 in order to take effect by Fall 1975, according to the Registrar.