Time to add new classes reduced starting in fall

Beginning this fall, George Mason University students will have only one week following the start of the semester to add classes.

An e-mail was sent to students on March 9 notifying them of the decision.

“Members of [the] Academic Procedures Advisory Council and Academic Policies Committee conveyed strong concern that what amounts to a two and a half week add period is disruptive, allowing students to miss too much class, or alternatively causing them to find out that faculty will not let them start during the add period,” said Janette Muir, chair of the Academic Policies Committee on the Faculty Senate. “Some administrators see this as too lengthy and a hindrance to the academic process.”

Muir added that faculty members were worried students who began a class two weeks into the semester would be at a disadvantage.

The Faculty Senate voted to reduce the add period on March 3, 2010, but did not make the new policy public until more than a year later.

"The Faculty Senate delayed making an announcement so that they could give campus offices enough time to think [about] potential impacts of the change and… determine how to begin to get the word out," said Evan Baum, assistant dean for undergraduate programs in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.