BU Changes Academic Calendar
Photo provided by Rampage student photographer Elei Haynes.
The university is officially changing the academic calendar starting in the 2026-2027 term, with changes as early as this spring.
Last semester, The Rampage covered Bluefield University considering changing the academic calendar and seeking feedback from students. That feedback has been considered, and changes are coming.
Dr. Michael Salmeier, Bluefield University provost and chief academic officer, said that he had been seeing a need for such a change since first joining the university staff four years ago.
“At the end of the first semester I was here (4 years ago now), I started receiving a whole bunch of requests for students to be able to finish their courses remotely after Thanksgiving. I started asking around and realized it had become a growing issue,” Dr. Salmeier said.
Dr. Salmeier explained that reuniting with family for the holidays was difficult for BU students.
“Because we are located in a relatively remote area, travel to and from BU isn’t always easy,” Dr. Salmeier said. “With the short time between Thanksgiving and the end of the term, students were (for good reason) wanting not to have to travel back and forth twice in such a short time period. We began studying what we could do to address the issue, and one of the ideas was adjusting the calendar to enable us to finish by Thanksgiving.”
Something important to consider, however, was how faculty felt about this potential change.
“We wanted to make sure that both students and faculty saw a value to it, even if it meant a few disadvantages (starting earlier in August, shortening the schedule by a week by doing away with a formal finals week, etc.). So, last year we surveyed both groups,” Dr. Salmeier said.
Faculty also saw the value in changing the calendar, so then the deans of the school took the next steps necessary to make such a change to the calendar.
“We mapped out the schedule to see if we could make it work. We discussed potential drawbacks (a longer time between Fall and Spring semesters could lead to more students not returning) and how we might address those (we plan to ‘beef up’ offerings in the Fall III term as a bridge term for students),” Dr. Salmeier said.
After these necessary conversations, the schedule was formally changed.
Dr. Salmeier added, “After all of this conversation, the deans formally approved a proposal to put before the faculty a change to the calendar. That proposal was presented to the faculty for discussion and input. The faculty then voted to approve the change with implementation for this coming spring term.”