Last year, the University of the Philippines and the University of Santo adjusted their academic calendars in the spirit of globalization. This August, the Loyola Schools (LS) will follow suit, with classes beginning in August instead of June and ending in May instead of March.

“We’re one of the earlier ones who decided on it, but we didn’t rush it,” says John Paul Vergara, PhD, vice president of the LS. This decision had been made two years ago, and with it came the knowledge that the change would require a lot of planning and effort.

Celeste Gonzales, associate dean for Graduate Programs and chairman of the academic sub-committee of the LS technical working group on the adjustment of the academic calendar, says that from her own observation, “it was the Ateneo de Manila that first started talking about changing the academic calendar.”

According to Gonzales, even though the decision came early, its implementation was not immediate because of the university’s consultative nature. A lot of preparations and consultations with stakeholders had to be done before implementation so that no office would feel unrepresented in the matter of adjustment to the new calendar. Additionally, the creation of he University Global Relations Office, headed by Fr. Joey Cruz, SJ, was integral in the adjustment. The office handled the logistics of the adjustment—from conceptualization to communication, and all the way down to the implementation.

At present, the plans for adjustment are no longer up in the air and are ready for execution. Next academic year, classes will start in August for the LS. But, really, what does that mean for the LS community?

Intersession

For the LS offices, it means adjustment.

The end of school year (SY) 2014-2015 brings with it the start of the adjustment calendar for SY 2015-2016. Pushing back the start of the first semester to August has moved the start of the summer semester to June instead of April. In place of the summer semester usually held during the months of April and May, there will be a period called the Intersession.

During the Intersession, the activities of the LS offices will be minimal, but something that Vergara says will happen are “plenaries for all the faculty members to give feedback on different areas in the school, so we get to review many of our operations and standards and guidelines.” After this, he says, the LS will work on the staff and professional development.

Gonzales adds, “April and May is also the time for the school to make repairs… cleaning of classrooms, housekeeping, in terms of the physical facility.”

Vergara says that during the Intersession, only necessary operations will continue, keeping work in the Ateneo at the minimum. He adds, “We’ll have [the Manuel V. Pangilinan Center for Student Leadership] open for some time para orgs can still continue to operate, but minimally. No special events, no projects.”

Cholo Mallillin, student services assistant for the Associate Dean for Student Affairs (ADSA), gives more details about the Intercession. He says there will be a compressed work week for the months of April and May, which means that employees will no longer go to work on Saturdays but will work for an hour longer during weekdays.

The adjustment will not affect the ADSA Office so much. Mallillin says that it will just be a matter of “moving our operations to a later date.” However, he says that the shift in the calendar will require the ADSA to arrange matters with partner communities for the National Service Training Program sessions and the Junior Engagement Program. This will force organizations like Gawad Kalinga to adjust to the new schedule as well.

Mallillin says that the Intersession will also give the ADSA Office time to improve student services like reserving venues, parking, traffic schemes and security, and special student services for students with special needs, dormers and students at risk.

When it comes to adjusting classes and syllabi to the accommodate the new academic calendar, however, Gonzales says, “Our spirit is this way: We have to be very flexible. It cannot be a ‘one size fits all’ transition thing.” She recognizes that one department will adjust to the calendar differently from another department.

Vergara points out a case where the adjustment requires more than just moving dates. The Theology Department has religious education programs that involve Atenean students teaching basic education in other schools. Students participating in these programs usually have them during summer semester, which used to be from April to May. However, the students teach in schools that have not yet adjusted to the new calendar, which means that the Atenean students who teach them will still have to work with the old calendar.

Another potential complication to the adjustment is the expected decrease of freshmen enrollees for the next two years, which will be caused by the two additional years of high school due to the Kindergarten to Grade 12 (K-12) program. Vergara says that they do not expect the decrease to be so drastic because “many of our feeder schools are already K-12 ready, meaning they will have high school graduates during those years.” He also says, “We have compensated for that anticipated decline by gradually increasing enrollment in the past two years. After 2018, we expect to have freshman batches of about 2,500 students, from about 2,100 plus in recent years.”

A matter of mobility

These efforts are done in the name of progress in the Ateneo. Most of all, what this new calendar enables in the university, Vergara says, is mobility. He says that mobility—both of foreign students going into the LS and LS students studying abroad— in recognition of globalization, is key to having a more diverse student population, which will bear fruitful discussions in the classroom.

In the past, the Ateneo had experienced challenges when it came to sending students abroad because the previous academic calendar was different from those of foreign universities. Vergara shares that the Ateneo had already come up with solutions for outbound Atenean students, like having the Junior Term Abroad semester and creating a separate calendar for them. “We’ve fixed how to do outbound students, even without a calendar change, but [for] inbound [students], we’re kind of trapped.”

Vergara points out that foreign exchange students who come to the Ateneo in June to start classes essentially lose their summer vacation. Another concern is that foreign exchange students who opt to have class in the Ateneo during the second semester would start their classes almost mid-way of the semester already, because of the difference in the academic calendars.

With the shift in the academic calendar, he says, the university expects an increase in both inbound and outbound students. He shares that the Ateneo did “quite well” with both types of students with the old academic calendar, but he expects to do “even better beyond this year after we change our calendar.”

Another benefit of the new calendar, Vergara says, is that the university will have stronger partnerships abroad. He adds that having those partnerships would open up new opportunities for the LS.

He says, “The more you have student exchange, the more Ateneo [becomes] known, the more students come in, the more they give feedback about the [Philippines] and the [Ateneo]. That increases exchange and then we move on to other things—by ‘other things,’ we mean: Faculty exchanges, joint degree programs with other universities and other collaborations in many other areas, even as far as [outreaches] and [immersions].”

When it comes to mobility, adjusting the academic calendar is integral to attaining a university goal: To have a diverse student population. However, the benefits that are visible now only scratch the surface. This synchronization of the academic calendar, as Vergara puts it, “will always open up new opportunities.”

Opportunities

Although the Ateneo had been at the forefront when it came to making the decision to synchronize its academic calendar to that of schools outside the Philippines, the plan will only be executed this August.

At present, it is difficult to specifically qualify what these “new opportunities” are besides a more diverse student populace and more opportunities for LS students to study abroad. However, this calendar has undoubtedly opened the door to a world of opportunities for LS students—opportunities that not only lay beyond the walls of the Ateneo campus, but opportunities that may even reach the far ends of the globe.

The adjustment of the academic calendar will definitely affect many factors in the university—but these are factors that the LS offices will take care of during the intersession. For the students, all that is left now is to wait and look forward to the opportunities waiting on the other end of this four month-long summer vacation.