ISU officials are considering a change in the academic calendar to better benefit students, faculty and staff. However, the proposed changes to shorten both school-year semesters would be detrimental to students in a multitude of ways.

The current calendar (called in this proposal Calendar A) allows for 15 weeks of academic instruction, not including finals, while the new calendar (Calendar B) only allows for 14 weeks. This would lengthen winter break by a week, and both fall and spring semesters would begin a few days later than usual. Fall and spring “end of semester” and commencement dates would remain the same as under the current calendar, reserving the time we already have for summer break and adding a few more days to it before the beginning of the fall semester.

While more time off of school may sound good to students at first, it may interfere with students’ academic performance — this is because the missing days in the semester would be transformed into longer class times.

Currently, Monday/Wednesday/Friday classes are 50 minutes, and Tuesday/Thursday classes are 75—80 minutes. But under Calendar B, classes would be 55 minutes and 85 minutes, respectively.

It could be argued that adding five to 10 minutes onto each class isn’t a big deal, but students are geared toward a shorter class time.

The proposal assumes professors would actually be able to continue their lecture or discussion for the extra five to 10 minutes without students becoming restless or beginning to pack up and leave. Paying attention in class is hard enough as it is — lengthened class times coupled with shorter semesters would result in students learning less material than expected of them, which will affect their academic performance.

Calendar B would also make class start and end times very irregular. All classes now start on the hour in a.m. hours and 10 minutes past the hour in p.m. hours. But with the new calendar, class start and end times would get progressively later through the day. The first class of the day on Monday would begin at 8 a.m. and end at 8:55 a.m., with the next class starting at 9:05 a.m. and ending at 10 a.m. This would continue through the last class of the day, which would start at 4:40 p.m. and end at 5:35 p.m.

This isn’t to mention the effect a schedule change will have on community resources.

For instance, CyRide would most likely have to change its bus route schedules to accommodate class time changes. This may not be convenient for both non-student and student riders.

Calendar B isn’t the best choice for students — keep classes the way they are.