Provost Message Announcing New Calendar

The following email was sent to all faculty, staff and students on Tuesday, 19 July 2022, at 8:46 a.m.

Dear Kent State Community,

After a year of studying opportunities to create a better academic calendar—one that incorporates appropriate instructional time, minimizes disruption to class meetings, and allows for processing required administrative tasks—a new academic calendar has been adopted beginning Fall 2023, with the president's approval.

Colloquially named Option 3, this new academic calendar will incorporate the following features:

• Fall classes begin on the second-to-last Monday in August.
• Winter break will continue to be four weeks.
• Fall and Spring final exam weeks will be on a Monday-to-Sunday schedule.
• Summer term will be reduced by one week.

Thank you for your feedback to several surveys regarding our academic calendar. Although no one option was without complications, we believe Option 3 allows us to best address our central mission of excellent academic programming. We will continue to work on remaining issues, such as difficulties presented with the decrease of one week in the summer term.  

Regarding the options discussed for moving Spring Break week, Faculty Senate requested that no change occur until more research is completed.

Please see more details about the new academic calendar at www.kent.edu/provost/curriculum/academic-calendar-update.

Our gratitude goes to the members of the Academic Calendar Committee and to all the respondents to the calendar surveys for their time and thoughtful feedback on this important issue.

Sincerely,

Sue Clement, President, AAUP FT NTT Unit
Tracy Laux, Chair, Faculty Senate
Deborah Smith, President, AAUP TT Unit
Melody Tankersley, Senior Vice President and Provost