J(oke)-Term

After a semester-long process of so-called debate and deliberation, the Harvard University Committee on Calendar Reform finally released its recommendations in late March. Charged with finding ways to coordinate the academic schedules of Harvard’s many schools to facilitate cross-registration, the Committee’s chief proposal is to move final exams to before winter break throughout Harvard. Four out of nine of Harvard’s schools already use such a schedule, and the committee’s bias—as well as the bias of University President Lawrence H. Summers—in this direction was evident from the outset. Although the proposal has been roundly criticized by members of the Faculty, changing the College’s calendar so that fall semester ends before winter break seems increasingly like a foregone conclusion—even if many of us still vigorously question the logic. But moving fall finals is not as simple as starting the year earlier and condensing reading period—both aspects of the proposal we strongly oppose—it will also free up the entire month of January. And at Harvard, no time can be wasted in idleness.

What to do with January is the biggest question stemming from the Committee’s report; the proposal suggests that each school should develop its own offerings to best suit its students’ needs and interests. The four Harvard schools with January free offer few clues to finding the right solution. The School of Public Health offers a variety of non-credit enrichment activities as well as electives and chances to do field research. The Kennedy School of Government often uses January as an extension of fall term—assigning research papers or take-home exams that are due that month. The Medical School and Law School, in contrast, offer full-fledged classes for credit. From these fuzzy and disparate precedents, it’s hard to imagine what the College’s “J-term” might look like.

To be sure, College administrators have many ideas about how they would like to use the month of January. Indeed, much of the support for calendar reform stems from a desire to use the month of January for innovative new curricular projects. They argue that J-term is not simply an afterthought in the quest to align Harvard’s calendars, but an integral part of the reason. Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 calls the potential J-term “an opportunity for us to offer types of instruction that we don’t offer during the semester.” Indeed, the idea of a J-term has much going for it. At other schools with J-terms, the month does provide students with non-credit and for-credit activities that could not be offered in any other environment. With wide participation from faculty and student clubs, MIT’s Independent Activities Period (IAP) allows students to do lab work, learn topology, shoot a bow-and-arrow, weld aluminum and watch imported anime—literally everyday. Middlebury’s J-term includes extensive travel and service opportunities. At Harvard, an ideal J-term could open up the possibility of international travel, research and volunteer work. Student groups could also take advantage of January to plan ambitious activities that might otherwise be impossible to squeeze into the regular school year.

However, despite all the speculation about the dream of J-term, questions about faculty support, student stress, financial aid and academic value continue to plague the J-term proposal. In short, we are far from convinced of the feasibility of constructing a J-term that is both academically valuable and relaxed enough to allow already-overworked students to wind down. Proponents of J-term may have the best of intentions and believe the proposed term has enormous potential, but that in itself is not reason to give it a try.

For a J-term to work, the Faculty must be behind it, but judging from the Faculty Council’s reception of the proposal, there seems to be little excitement—and for good reason. Professors who lead J-term activities presumably could not or would not teach the same number of semester-long classes. Teaching during the J-term might also cut down on time available for research during reading and finals period. A successful J-term depends on an innovative and interesting curriculum, but without the Faculty’s support—which has yet to materialize—it is difficult to see how J-term classes will challenge and excite students.

Furthermore, a J-term could actually raise student workloads just as it would raise faculty workloads. The simple fact is that a J-term will substantially increase the number of days students spend in class at Harvard. But beyond this simple arithmetic, the structure of J-term could easily lend itself to one-upmanship and intense competition between students. Consider two alternative models of J-term. If classes for concentration credit are offered, the month of January—once filled with a quiescent reading period and intersession—will turn into another avenue for over-stressed students to “get ahead.” On the other hand, if J-term consists of nothing but non-traditional, non-credit electives, then the very academic value of J-term will be suspect. Middlebury’s non-credit, mandatory J-term may provide students with unique travel opportunities, but many students and faculty there describe it as little more than a chance to slack off. And while many Harvard students might appreciate an extended chance to hang out, it is hardly Harvard’s place to make it a mandatory part of the curriculum. If given the choice between J-term and a longer winter break, most students would prefer the option of slacking off away from Harvard.

Unwinding for a longer winter break also would not cost a penny of tuition—J-term might. Although Gross has said that Harvard’s market-driven tuition rate is unlikely to rise as a result of adopting a J-term, notions of massive study abroad programs during J-term make that assertion questionable. Without huge sums of new financial aid dollars, J-term will establish a two-tiered student body—those who can pay for costly travel-based J-term programs and those who cannot. It’s a catch-22. For a J-term to be more than a ragtag assortment of department-sponsored movie screenings (as are many of the J-term offerings during IAP), it needs real classes or real travel or real service projects. All of these options come with significant costs that proponents of the plan—for whatever reason—seem all too quick to ignore. Overstressing students or their bank accounts is not an acceptable way to shunt Harvard College into schedule parity with the rest of the University.

The real problem here is the Committee’s unwillingness to question the schedules of the other schools at Harvard. The four schools with J-terms and finals before winter break have been treated as prototypes, yet the superiority of their schedules is still in question. Although it appears December finals are all but inevitable, it does not follow that the other five schools—the College included—should have to shape their calendars on the mold of the other four. Cross-registration alone does not merit trashing the schedules of five Harvard schools.

The alternative to a J-term is a longer winter break—and an earlier spring finish. Obviously a six week break (two weeks of preexisting break plus four weeks of the defunct J-term) seems rather excessive—even a four-week break would make Harvard’s winter recess on the long side for the Ivies. Nonetheless, that would leave the College’s schedule only two weeks out-of-sync with Harvard’s other schools. And surely if the College and other schools with finals after Christmas are willing to change, the four J-term schools should be willing to as well. Unless all of Harvard University meets halfway on calendar reform, students from the College and four other schools will be left with a flawed J-term as their only reward for their sacrifice. Harvard University’s calendar can serve students best by finding common ground among its nine members.