The Government of the Student Body voted Wednesday to recommend the current academic calendar be kept.

GSB voted 27-5-1 that Calendar A, the current calendar, be kept because of student concern with the lengthened classes and shorter semesters Calendar B proposes.

“There are benefits to both options, but almost all of the students I’ve talked to prefer the current calendar, because they realize teachers don’t talk about topics by the minute, but by the day,” said Speaker of the Senate Tony Luken. “Cutting out a week from both semesters means a loss of a week of instruction and lecture topics that can help students in their future careers.”

In Calendar B, the number of weeks in a semester would be reduced from the current 15 to 14, to accommodate for an extended week during winter break. To make up for the week, the calendar proposes five minutes be added to classes meeting Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Classes meeting Tuesdays and Thursdays would be extended by five to 10 minutes.

“For design students who I represent, Calendar B would cut a week of studio work that’s critical to design students,” said Design Senator Rafael Fernandez. “Other students in majors that require work on projects outside of class for their majors would also be affected.”

According to the Academic Calendar Task Force Web site, www.iastate.edu/news/cal, a student taking 16 credit hours will increase the time they spend in academic pursuits by four hours a week, from 40 hours to 44.

The Faculty Senate also voted to recommend Calendar A be implemented, but in a slightly different version from its current form. The different version of Calendar A has been referred to as the “A+” proposal.

The Faculty Senate voted last night to recommend Calendar A be implemented if it’s amended to make break four weeks long instead of three. The proposal also asked the calendar be adopted to allow for the extra week by pushing back the start of spring semester by one week.

This would consequently push back the start of summer break and when students graduate by one week.

“Students haven’t mentioned A+ — it’s A or B,” Luken said. “Faculty Senate is arrogant [for proposing A+] … we can’t know what students think about A+ since this morning.”

A+ would make the university’s calendar similar to the University of Iowa’s. The proposal is also similar to the Calendar D proposal the task force rejected last spring after results from an online poll held last April indicated not many students, faculty or staff favored the proposal compared to Calendars A and B.

“I think amending Calendar A to allow for an extended break and push back the start of spring semester would primarily be an advantage to the faculty,” said Nathan Johnson, Director for Student Affairs and member of the calendar task force. “[The Faculty Senate’s proposal] would cut another week off summer. It would decrease the available time when many students earn more money for college. It would give other students at other universities an advantage in getting jobs over the summer, because they could start sooner and work longer.”

GSB’s vote comes just before the deadline for a summary of comments on the two proposals to be submitted by the Academic Calendar Task Force to ISU President Gregory Geoffroy.

Geoffroy is expected to make the decision over which calendar the university will implement by mid-December.

Arne Hallam, chairman of the task force, said the calendar would not be implemented as soon as next fall, but will more than likely be implemented in either fall 2005 or fall 2006.