Facts:
The Regents often complain when they perceive that the faculty are not working as much as they should. It is inconsistent to require use of the finals week for full semester courses, but not use it for half semester courses.
Faculty can provide better information on the status/performance of students at the end of the eighth week than at the end of the seventh week.
It entails unnecessary difficulty for faculty to teach half semester courses during eight weeks one semester and seven weeks the next semester.
Therefore be it resolved that the University of Northern Iowa Faculty Senate inform the Registrar that a semester containing fifteen instructional weeks and one week of finals entails a sixteen week semester.
1) This matter should be referred to the Educational Policies Commission.
2) The essence of this request is that mid-semester should occur at the end of the eighth week both semesters.
3) The present practice is actually in violation of the 1985 Faculty Senate resolution, even if fnals week is not included in the semester, since the Martin Luther King holiday provides that the first seven weeks of the Spring semester contain only 34 instructional days, while the next eight weeks contain 40, entaling a difference of more than 5 days.
4) Half semester courses, because they meet more often, generally take at least a standard scheduling block, hence there should not be a conflict from using the final exam period for that scheduling block.