13 or 14? The GW Academic Calendar Imbroglio

This is mostly GW inside baseball, so if you don't care about such things, there's an interesting discussion at Leiter's Law School Reports about the value of the socratic method. Don't care about that, either? Hmm... Go read Think Progress then, ok? There's always something good and snarky there...

Anywho, in the fall of 2004, GW changed its academic schedule from 14-week semesters with 50-minute “hours” for classes, to 13-week semesters with 55-minute “hours” (or something like that; I just show up when the tell me to). The goal was to compress the ABA-required class time into 13 weeks to make space for the Fall Interview Program (FIP) in the fall. At the time, the SBA (Student Bar Association) and faculty discussed other reasons for the switch, but none of them seemed as important as catering to the big firms that dominate FIP and the students who so dearly want to work for them.

The 13-week schedule was just an experiment that was set to end after a year or two, so now the school is having a bit of a discussion about it. This has generated two fascinating emails from partisans on either side of the issue.

Proponents of the 13-week calendar write:

A 14 week calendar will result in FIP beginning on the same day classes start, 1Ls have no fall break, 1Ls having their first week of school the same as the student body (as opposed to having the campus to themselves), graduation occuring a week later and as a result barring the law school from participating in the university's joint ceremony, one less week to work at your summer job, graduation and the start of bar preparations occurring on the same week and one less week for vacation.

On the other hand:

Here are some reasons that we should go back to the 14-week schedule:

* The odd end/start times of classes and the cramming of 14 weeks into 13 has led to no available times for organization meetings, panels, speakers. We used to have the 5 - 6 pm timeslot with no classes scheduled.

* No available classrooms for organization events - they are all scheduled for classes.

* 26 weeks instead of 28 weeks gives less time to do all the activities that the organizations have planned for the year.

* Not an advantage to have graduation the same time as the whole university. You'll be competing with undergrads for hotels and restaurants and get a generic GW experience rather than a special law school experience.

* If you don't like the idea of missing 1L Fall break, think about the poor evening 1Ls who have to give up Spring break (and don't get Fall break) under the 13 week system. Evening students make up close to 20% of the JD population here and they overwhelmingly supported keeping the 14 week schedule.

* Less education for your money. Although the total minutes in class is longer under 13 weeks, we all know the end of class period is the least productive part of our education.

In many ways it is cheaper for the administration to have the 13 week schedule, but more expensive for the students in terms of their diminished law school experience.

Are your eyes glazed over? Probably, but what's interesting about this is just that it shows that some law students actually seem to care about how their school experience is designed! This may not be a huge issue, but at least its a sign of life from the student body.

For what it's worth, I'm pretty firmly in the 14-week camp. As mentioned above, the 13-week schedule produces crazy class start/end times (i.e. 3:50-5:15!?) that don't mesh well w/other activities, such as work or social life. The problems the compressed schedule causes for student organizations are real and, although I have no hard evidence of it, I do not doubt that support for student groups (or at least turnout at meetings and events) has dropped b/c of this schedule. In the long run, this could decrease the quality of student life overall. But perhaps most important, the 14-week schedule simply gives more time to cover and digest class material and makes doing so feel just a bit less harried and hectic. I'm all for long summer breaks or whatever, but I prefer a slower, steadier academic pace and I think we had that w/the 14-week schedule.

Posted September 23, 2005 10:30 AM | 3L