UR has formed a committee known as the “Rhythms, Cycles and Themes Committee,” to analyze the school calendar in hopes of making recommendations as to how it can be improved.
The committee, composed of staff and students, is examining all “academic, co-curricular and social/cultural” events on campus to look for patterns in the schedule and to make recommendations based on this information for possible changes.
“We’re trying to see if there are times that there is too little or too much of a certain thing happening,” senior and committee member Ben Nagle said.
The committee, which is in its initial stages, is currently collecting the dates of all major campus events and will use this information to create a large calendar to demonstrate patterns.
They are also considering the overall intensity of events in their considerations. For example, Meliora Weekend would be given a higher intensity rating because it involves more people and has more events than freshman orientation, as it primarily targets freshmen.
By examining the large picture, they will be able to understand why some events are better attended or vice versa, and aim to recommend changes to the university calendar because it, “does not always meet the students needs,” said Ann-Marie Algier, a member of the board and new Interim director of Student Activities and Wilson Commons.
Assistant Dean and Director of the Career Center Burt Nadler is excited and optimistic the efforts put forth by this committee will bring valuable insight to help transform UR into a “better environment to live, work and learn.”
When the project is complete, the committee will give their recommendations to Dean of The College William Green and Dean of the Faculty Thomas LeBlanc.
“The cycle committee actually revives work done earlier on the RCC,” Green said. “The idea is to see if the committee can identify a rhythm to each semester for event planning and the like.”
Green feels that the cycle committee is a benefit to the university. “I think they want to see if there are ways to make the semester more coherent and to see if there are ways for more people to participate in more events and activities,” Green said.
Although many students had not heard of this group, when told they were interested. “There are definitely times when I haven’t been able to go to an event because I have too much to do. I’ll be interested to see what they come up with,” said sophomore Kim Silver.
The calendar committee meets as a large group every other Tuesday at 8:45 a.m. at the Career Center.
Anyone interested should contact Burt Nadler at bnadler@mail.rochester.edu.
Michel can be reached at kmichel@campustimes.org.
