The Oswego State faculty assembly met on Monday, Feb. 12, and will consider a motion to review the academic calendar on Feb. 19.

Casey Raymond, a professor of chemistry and lab coordinator for general chemistry at Oswego State, proposed the motion in late December of last year, according to assembly documents. The proposal will change the rules for college holidays, reducing the number of religious holidays that close the entire campus.

Under current rules, Oswego State closes for more religious holidays than most SUNY colleges, and Oswego State is the only SUNY campus closed on Good Friday. The chemistry department uniquely experiences these closings, as the university’s chemistry program is accredited by the American Chemical Society, which offers a competitive certification but requires 400 lab hours over the course of a student’s studies. This accreditation is at risk, Raymond explained.

“Students typically have 416 hours in their degree program, however, with the current calendar, the students beginning in fall 2017 will earn 395 hours due to missed laboratory sessions over their four-year career,” Raymond said.

Raymond’s proposal asks the campus Calendar Committee to review which holidays should result in complete college closure and which should be handled by the existing Oswego State policy for excused absences due to religious observance. This policy can be found in the attendance policy of the Oswego State student handbook and is protected by state law.

Many of the mandatory holidays that may be reviewed are Jewish holidays, which complicate the calendar because they fall on different dates every year. When these holidays result in closings, particularly mid-week, they force classes that rely on full-week sessions, such as lab periods, to cancel the entire week – these sessions on different days fall too far behind.

“If a student has an excused absence that we know in advance, whether religious observance or an athletic event, we can offer lab periods in other sections during the week for those students,” Raymond said.

These accommodations are impossible to offer to all 400 students of the chemistry program, particularly if not all students observe that holiday.

Raymond stressed that this goes beyond the chemistry department and would lead to a more inclusive college.

“I’m not trying to take something away,” Raymond said.

With the college observing some religious holidays but not others, it can cause some students discomfort with approaching their instructors for accommodations.

“We don’t want anybody to feel uncomfortable,” Raymond said.

Student Association President Dalton Bisson, who sits on the Calendar Committee, also expressed concern for student comfort, but he believes the issue of chemistry lab hours and observance of holidays are related but distinct. Chemistry students deserve to graduate on time, but according to Bisson, any change conducted by the Calendar Committee will take a minimum of two or three years to take effect. This timeline may help future students and allow Oswego State to keep the ACS accreditation, but it may be too late to help the fall 2017 chemistry students that prompted the department to action.

“Any solution that happens sooner will have to be patchwork and temporary,” Bisson said.

While the motion passed on Feb. 12, and Bisson was confident it will continue through the process, he emphasized any action would require several additional revisions and approval.

In the meantime, the chemistry department has investigated options to find a solution with the current calendar. While many are far from ideal, the department explored options that include altering the curriculum during those weeks, conducting major-only sections for students that need to meet requirements or offering lab sessions on off-hours. However, those come with their own complications. This problem has been around for years, but only recently has it jeopardized requirements, according to Raymond.

Oswego State is not the only school facing constraints by the American Chemical Society. The accreditation is a great boost to students when it comes to pursing careers and graduate studies after they earn their degree, according to both Raymond and L. Paul Rosenberg, professor emeritus of chemistry at Rochester Institute of Technology for 23 years.

Rosenberg remarked on the value of the accreditation, considering it not only a boon to students but the program and college, as the credential attracts more applicants and adds to the prestige of the school. Despite RIT rarely closing for holidays or Rochester’s similarly snowy winters, RIT still experienced difficulty meeting requirements. After RIT transitioned from academic quarters to semesters in 2013, Rosenberg explained the chemistry department had to overhaul its curriculum to comfortably fit the lab hours.

With the motion to review the calendar underway in the faculty assembly, a solution should be found in the coming months. While Bisson understands that nobody wants to lose days off, he invites students concerned with the proposal to contact his office at sa.president@oswego.edu or make an appointment to meet in person. Bisson said “the faculty assembly is always eager to hear student voices” and if enough students feel strongly, he may be able to arrange for students to express their concerns at a faculty assembly meeting. Meetings this semester are on Mondays in Lanigan Hall, room 105, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., every two weeks. The next meeting will be Feb. 26.

Taylor Woods | The Oswegonian