Quarter vs. semester: The debate begins

by Katherine Mayberry, associate provost for academic programs, Division of Academic Affairs

photo: Katherine Mayberry
Katherine Mayberry

Many in the RIT community are aware of the resurfacing of the quarter-semester debate. I write this essay to provide a context for and introduction to the calendar discussions that will begin in earnest later this summer and into the fall.

The Retention Task Force, charged in the fall of 1999 with addressing RIT’s comparatively low student retention numbers, has implicated the quarter calendar as an obstacle to enhanced student retention. The president views the task force’s argument as warranting a new look at the RIT calendar.

In examining the graduation rates of comparable schools, of our chief competitors, and of the very high-end technological universities, the task force found that our graduation rate--a standard measure of retention--is unusually low. Rensselaer graduates about 70 percent of its freshmen; Villanova, 85 percent; Carnegie Mellon, 75 percent, and Syracuse, 71 percent. At the higher end, Massachusetts Institute of Technology boasts a 92 percent rate and Cal Tech, 85 percent. Using a formula for calculating minimal expected graduation rates, we discovered that RIT is under-performing by almost 10 percentage points.

Regarding the causes of attrition, we found that RIT loses students for most of the same reasons other schools do and that these reasons agree perfectly with the national retention literature. The common denominator seems to be poor levels of student integration into the university community. Unfortunately, the strategies for student integration that have been successful elsewhere are poorly suited to a quarter calendar. When we tried developing new strategies more suited to our particular calendar, we realized they held little promise of yielding substantial results.

Our student member, Patrick Bavaro-Phelan, finally voiced the unthinkable: If the quarter calendar is so unfriendly to retention strategies and we have a sizable retention problem, why not re-think the RIT calendar? Patrick’s suggestion didn’t claim many followers at first; but it had planted a seed that grew in spite of our best efforts to ignore it.

After a full year of studying retention, the task force became unanimously convinced that the optimal retention plan includes a highly flexible semester calendar.

Once we made this decision, we discovered some interesting national trends in academic calendars:

The quarter calendar seems to be disappearing in higher education. This year alone, 154 colleges and universities made calendar changes; not one included adoption of a quarter or trimester calendar. The only big pocket of quarter schools remaining is within the University of California system.

Within the last two years, the following schools have decided to convert from quarters or trimesters to semesters: Northeastern, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, University of Minnesota, Allegheny College, Georgia Tech, University of Michigan. Ohio State University and Drexel University are strongly considering the change.

Within a year or two, it will be impossible to buy academic records systems compatible with quarter calendars.

Excepting two tiny Hassidic schools in New York City and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Union College and RIT are the only two colleges in New York state not on a semester calendar.

Many of the schools which have converted to semesters report that before the change, students objected to semesters, but that afterwards the level of satisfaction was higher.

In the benchmark sets we used, the schools with graduation rates lower than ours tended to be quarter schools (e.g., Drexel, Northeastern, Cincinnati, Ohio State).

Upon receiving the recommendations of the Retention Task Force, the president formed a small committee to review the calendar arguments of the task force for merit and to conduct an initial calendar conversion feasibility study. This committee’s findings are due to the president by July 30.

The retention report will be distributed to the full community, including the board of trustees. That report already is controversial; but it is important that the university understand that in the view of the task force it represents the most comprehensive and promising blueprint for enhanced student success at RIT.

This column presents opinions and ideas from your peers on issues relevant to higher education. We welcome response and hope "viewpoints" inspires discussion amongst you, the RIT community. To suggest an idea for a column, e-mail to newsevents@rit.edu.