News briefs
12 November 2003
2004-05 academic calendar adopted
Chancellor Berdahl has announced the approved calendar for the 2004-05 academic year. Among its effects, the calendar will move the first day of classes in the Fall semester back a week (to August 30, 2004). There will, however, be no change in the overall number of instruction days, which will remain at 146 for the year.
The calendar, when first proposed, aroused a considerable amount of opposition from students, who felt it would unfairly reduce the number of “dead days” prior to final exams, while reducing the exam period itself from eight days to seven. “On balance, the benefits of the new calendar outweigh these concerns,” said Berdahl, citing among them increased access to Summer Sessions, the provision to students of an additional week between Fall and Spring semesters, and freedom for faculty to attend scholarly conferences held at the end of August.
Executive Vice Chancellor Paul Gray will appoint a task force composed of administration, faculty, students, and staff to consider the issues and propose an alternate calendar for 2005-06 that meets both the need for a later Fall semester start and the required minimum number of instruction days.
New edition of HR
Links is online
The fall issue of HR Links, the Office of Human Resources newsletter for faculty and staff, is online at hrweb.berkeley.edu/hrlinks/hrLinks1003.htm. The issue includes important information about benefits open enrollment, as well as tips for making the most of your health-care dollars; an update on the work of the Staff Infrastructure Steering Committee; and news briefs and announcements about the Career Development Opportunity Program, free computer classes, and more.
Send comments and questions about HR Links, or any communication issues related to staff human resources, to hrweb@uclink.berkeley.edu or to the Office of Human Resources, HR Links, 207 University Hall MC 3540.
For the record …
In last week’s Berkeleyan, a Calendar highlight misstated the date of an upcoming Regents’ Lecture hosted by the School of Public Health, although the correct information was included in the regular Calendar listing that appeared both in print and online. The lecture by Steven Schroeder, founding medical director of the UCSF Division of Internal Medicine, entitled “Philanthrophy as an Instrument for Social Change,” will be given on Thursday, Nov. 13, at 4 p.m. in 22 Warren Hall. We regret the error.
Also in last week’s issue, in a story about the effect of rainfall amounts and timing on fatal traffic accidents, the source of weather data analyzed by the researcher was misidentified. The data were obtained from the National Climatic Data Center.