Board hopes to lighten the burden on staff
Arts faculty will start a week later in 2020
Teaching will only start in the second week of September at the Faculty of Arts next academic year. This is a week later than other faculties. The faculty board hopes to lighten the burden on staff and prevent a hectic situation.
By Giulia Fabrizi / Translation by Sarah van Steenderen
Lecturers will be able to schedule introductory and welcoming activities, says the faculty board, but they won’t be teaching any classes. The teaching-free week applies to both bachelor and master programmes.
Because blocks have to consist of seven weeks of classes, the first exam block will last two weeks instead of three. The faculty board says this is possible because one of these weeks is always used for resits, and there are barely any after the first block.
Hectic
According to the arts faculty, ‘the first days of the academic year are always really hectic when it comes to education’. In a letter to cluster boards and coordinators, study advisers, and study associations, the board writes that some classrooms were too full, while others were underused, and that a lot of adjustments had to be made during the first week of this year.
One of the biggest reasons for this is that some students have until September 1 to enrol in a programme. Other students don’t know until that specific date whether they meet the requirements to enrol. As next academic year will start on August 31, the board fears this will lead to even more issues than this past year.
Not the only one
Arts is apparently not the only faculty that won’t start classes until the second week. The letter says the faculty is following in the footsteps of other departments, although it’s not clear which ones.