Calendar Changes Due to COVID-19

While masks are voluntary, COVID-19 still leaves its mark via the changes to the 2021-2022 academic calendar. The Registrar and Chair of the Graduate School of Business, Stephanie Baird, said she and her team decided to play it safe regarding the school schedule, starting as early as August 5 and ending with Fall Commencement on November 19. The 2021-2022 school year starts a full week ahead of the 2020-2021 schedule, despite the later start dates of University of Central Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University and the University of Oklahoma.

According to Baird, the academic calendar has not changed drastically during her seven years with the university. Prior to COVID-19, the registrar team followed a formula where school started on Monday before Labor Day for the fall semester, and the semester ended with three weeks for winter break before the spring semester started on the Monday after New Year’s Day.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the registrar team to bump up the start date to prevent students travelling home for winter break because of predicted highs of COVID-19 outbreaks during the winter. Fall break was omitted for the same reason, as students normally visited home during the long weekend. 

Brian Simmons, the chair of the communication department and professor of communication, said erasing the break mid-semester made the school term harder for students.

“The biggest change I noticed is we didn’t have the breaks we were used to,” Simmons said. “It made the students more weary earlier in the semester.”

Senior English/writing major, Emma Higginbottom, said the changes to the schedule personally gave her little time to rest.

“I became very drained without a fall break,” Higginbottom said. “Without the unprecedented ice storm offering an unplanned break, I would have overwhelmed myself with academics.”

Simmons said the change in this year’s calendar is hard for some to adjust to because of the shift with tradition, but there are other problems with starting so early.

“I think part of it is just resistance to change among those who are not enamored with the change, but I also think there is something to be said – it is harder to start in early August,” Simmons said.

The shorter summer gives families less time to spend together as well as less time to prepare for the year. Some students had to cut their internships or jobs short to accommodate the school’s schedule. Higginbottom said her summer break was not long enough to prepare.

“We had about three months of break, but it flew by and was not reenergizing, especially for a capstone summer,” Higginbottom said.

The lack of Fall break affected some on campus, but Baird said she believed the change worked as intended overall since students did not travel during the predicted heights of COVID-19 outbreaks.

Baird also said the 2021 fall semester schedule had multiple requirements which ensured an early start.

“When I look at how many hours we’re supposed to have students in the classroom or in a lecture format even for an online class, we really needed to have that extra week just to hit requirements with accreditation and with the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education,” Baird said.

Each year, Baird and her team plan for 75 days of coursework in both the fall and spring semesters to ensure students learn enough of the material. However, the calendar must also match relevant dates for Edmond Public Schools in addition to other requirements, even though Oklahoma Christian starts a week early this year. Usually, the calendar is set two years in advance to plan the timing of all school breaks to match.

“We used to do it five years in advance, and that was almost too far in the future because spring and fall breaks would be different than local public schools, and we try to match Edmond public schools for our faculty and staff,” Baird said.

Beginning early, however, creates problems further in the year for events such as Homecoming, the Lighting of the Commons, and Fall Commencement. Despite the challenges of shifting the calendar, the same academic plan is set for next year, although the calendar has not yet been finalized.

“In some ways, this change that we did to the calendar had a lot of pros, and it’s definitely something that [Oklahoma Christian] is open to continuing to do maybe even after COVID-19 is hopefully history,” Baird said.

In the past, Oklahoma Christian has declined changing the calendar because of their adherence to a formula for planning the following year. However, the university has been and will continue to be flexible to accommodate the pandemic and other concerns in the future.