Brown University Adopts Calendar Reform Proposal

Brown University has adopted a new adademic calendar that will schedule final exams before winter vacation and extend the ingercession to four or five weeks.

The Faculty Policy Group voted Tuesday 119-30 in favor of the new proposal, which will go into effect in 1983.

Peter Heywood, a biology professor and chairman of the Faculty Policy Group, said yesterday that dissatisfaction from a number of groups in the university prompted the decision to change the calendar, adding that a poll taken this spring indicated that students would prefer the first semester to end before Christmas.

Both the faculty and students felt that Christmas vacation was a "lame duck period" that breaks down educational continuity, Hilary A. Schneider, a member of the undergraduate council of students, said yesterday, adding that "students are generally pleased" with the calendar reform.

Twenty-three hundred students earlier this week signed a petition calling for calendar reform, Schneider said, adding that no anti-calendar group has been formed, indicating overwhelming student support.

Brown has twice before attempted calendar reform, but both attempts failed.