CSU East Bay’s Chancellor’s office discusses the option to switch the school from the quarter system to the semester system.

CSUEB is undertaking a planning study this academic year to determine how the university might convert to the semester system if the Chancellor’s office decides to proceed with the change, according to Don Scoble, Interim Director of Communications for CSUEB.

“Changing to a semester system is a possibility. We don’t know when a decision might be made since it will come from the CSU Chancellor’s office,” said Scoble.

Six of the 23 CSU campuses are on the quarter system; these schools are CSU Los Angeles, CSU San Bernardino, CSU Bakersfield, Cal Poly Pomona, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and CSU East Bay.

“CSU Los Angeles has been looking at the possibility of making the change for some time now and has done a lot of research about it,” Scoble said. The discussion has been to convert all of these six campuses to the semester system as a package arrangement.

“There is no definite body of evidence that demonstrates students learn more on one system than the other,” continued Scoble. “Some people think the slower pace of the semester system is better for student learning. Others think the shorter classes and more variety of classes found in the quarter system is better for keeping students’ interest.”

Based on experience from other campuses that have changed to the semester system, it will take three to four years to complete the transition as a whole once the decision has been made to leave the quarter system.

There are many tasks that need to be done before a successful conversion happens including: a new academic calendar, a curriculum redesign that moves general education, majors, minors, credentials, certificates, and all individual courses from quarter to semester units.

New class meeting modules, new articulation agreements with community colleges, revision of the student data system, revised advising materials, new financial aid disbursement schedules, and changes to many business processes will also be required to make the transition.

Some of the faculty welcome the possibility of the semester system here at CSUEB. Nancy White, an associate professor in the Hospitality, Recreation and Tourism Department, said, “I like the semester system, I feel that it gives students more time to study a subject.”

“I have taught and been a student in both and vastly prefer quarter system, because it’s faster and the semester system drags,” says Professor Nancy Thompson who is opposed to the change.

Although students who are currently at CSUEB would not be affected by the change, they still have an opinion about the change if it were to happen.

Right now with athletics our school has three quarters and they have different off-season schedules than the CSUs that are on the semester system.

“I like the idea because it would give me the opportunity to play water polo to my best and still have time to make up my class work with less stress knowing that the pace isn’t as fast with the semester system,” said Julia Charlesworth, a junior from CSUEB’s water polo team.

At CSUEB not all students are as happy about the thought of the conversion to the semester system.

“I would be upset and wouldn’t want to go to this school, because we already can’t take as many units as we want, and that would make it worse for graduation because it would take longer to graduate,” said Katherine Sykes a junior at CSUEB.

“The funding for CSU campuses on the semester or quarter system is the same, that is, the budgets for each campus are calculated on a full-time equivalent basis which is the same regardless of an individual campus being on the semester or quarter,” said Scobel.

“However, since semester system campuses have one less term per academic year, the university should experience some administrative cost savings.”  Scobel also said, “Transitioning to the semester system, though, would involve some up-front costs which are yet to be determined. These costs are expected to be offset by additional funding from the Chancellor’s office.”

Of the nine UC campuses, eight are on the quarter system. Only UC Berkeley is on the semester system. UC Berkeley converted from quarters to semesters some time ago. A semester unit counts as 1.5 quarter units. Thus, the minimum number of semester units for a bachelor’s degree in the CSU is 120 semester units or 180 quarter units. Quarter units convert to semester units, and require students to take fewer units, which may please students.

There has not been a final decision on whether CSUEB will change to the semester system.