College President Jonathan Palmer and the Board of Trustees decided that the future of Principia lies in the semester system. I think, to put it lightly, the student body disagrees. In fact, as a student, I believe I am not alone when I say that I am upset at the way this decision was presented to us in the end. I may be making this issue bigger than it is, but it appeared that Dr. Palmer buried this extremely important news in a multi-subject email. This announcement deserved at least its own email. I personally would have preferred him to tell us to our faces. If the rationale for this move was actually “a compelling combination of administrative, scheduling, athletic, and academic improvements,” I think a meeting would have been a facile motion for the President.
The second problem is that Dr. Palmer did not give an ample amount of time for a solution to arise. I wouldn’t be complaining if I had not thought of one of my own after he closed debate.
After asking around within the student body, I found two common arguments. The argument for semesters was that it allows for a more relaxed schedule — something Principia desperately needs. The justification for staying with the quarter system was that the students like the break schedule. Obviously, the differences in these systems go beyond this, but in the interest of staying under 500 words, here is the one question I walked away with: why not hybridize the two?
The students clearly want the breaks that the quarter system allots. However, they also want the spread-out daily schedule that the semester system offers. Therefore, we should move to a system with the current quarter breaks, but with a semester daily schedule. Students want Monday/Wednesday and Tuesday/Thursday Friday block style classes, but they also want to be able to go home for Thanksgiving. Give them both. Classes will meet every other day, giving us a little more freedom at night, and we can still keep the system over 75% of students wanted.
The students, not the Board of Trustees, attend this school, and if Principia wants to keep the student body it has, it had better start listening to them.
Ron Meyer
