Following a unanimous Board of Trustees vote May 29, Seattle University will be shifting from the quarter system to the semester system by the 2027-28 academic year. A move to semesters will unify Seattle U’s three different academic calendars: the First Hill Campus, the South Lake Union Campus (also known as Cornish College of the Arts) and Seattle U’s School of Law.
To keep students and faculty updated on the calendar unification process, Provost Shane Martin, a member of the academic calendar working group, and a select group of professors will be hosting a series of forums to update the campus community on ongoing and upcoming processes.
“There will be touch points with the community [to] keep people informed, and multiple opportunities [showing] how this project will be moving forward,” Martin said.
Following the Oct. 23 forum, there will be multiple workshops and info sessions throughout November for students who were unable to attend last Thursday’s forum. Dates for these events will be on the Redhawk Hub.
Before any information was given out at the forum, Martin acknowledged that this unification of the academic calendars is a significant change for everyone at Seattle U. Still, he believes it is necessary for the university’s future success.
“What we’re doing is a major change, and there are many reasons why we’re doing this, and there’s always a wide amount of viewpoints on this topic. We’re asking a lot of our staff, students, and faculty, and we do believe we are making sacrifices for a brighter future,” Martin said at the forum.
One of the main topics discussed at the forum was the tight proposed timeline for calendar unification. Some were concerned that the presidential transition, as Peñalver will be leaving Seattle U at the end of the winter quarter, could interfere with unification. Martin dispelled this concern.
“With the presidential transition, how does it impact the work and the timeline? It doesn’t. The work continues because the influences on this project come from our board of trustees,” Martin said at the forum.
Both Martin and the professors speaking at the forum highlighted how tight this timeline is for everyone involved. A given reason for the short timeline was that, accompanying calendar unification, Seattle U will be switching to new backend software that will handle all financial aid, student records and campus-wide payroll.
Another operational shift discussed at the forum is the need to convert quarter classes to semester classes and to create a block schedule that works for both students and professors. The earliest start time for classes would be moving from 7:30 a.m. to 8:45 a.m.
Tammy Herdener, the senior vice provost of academic and student affairs and the co–chair of the academic calendar working group, explained why this initiative came about in the first place.
“We did this year-long evaluation in this work group that was comprised of people in all corners of campus, and at the end of the day, there was very little that we could do to actually make it better,” Herdener said.
In part, the study on how to improve the quarter system at Seattle U focused on analyzing reports that the calendar is running into roadblocks to students’ success, such as limited internship and study abroad opportunities due to later start and end dates than semester schools. Further, unification would eliminate scheduling abnormalities like the two-week gap between Seattle U’s Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, giving international students more continuous time to spend with family.
Zachary Wood, assistant professor of public affairs, shared his opinion on the decision to switch to the semester system. The issue has long been controversial among Seattle U faculty. In a 2021 referendum on calendar unification, 70% of faculty voted to remain on the quarter system, though the overall campus vote was a much narrower 53% win for quarters.
“In my opinion, some of the rationale for making this switch has merit. This conversation about semester vs. quarter is not new for Seattle U, though it continues to be fraught with tension among faculty and Staff,” Wood said. “I want students to know that we hear and feel their angst or fear about major changes like this. My students are at the core of what I do, and while major decisions like this create lots of questions and uncertainty, we will walk this pathway together, and we will thrive in it regardless of those uncertainties.”
