By Larry B. Dendy
ldendy@uga.edu
The University Council this week will consider a proposal to create the School of Public and International Affairs and vote on an academic calendar that eliminates a two-day break before the Georgia-Florida football game in the fall of 2002.
The council, the university’s highest governing body, meets Feb. 22 at 3:30 p.m. in the law school auditorium. Anyone can attend the meeting but only council members can speak and vote.
Plans for the School of Public and International Affairs have been developed over the past two years by a faculty committee headed by Loch Johnson, professor of political science. The University Council Executive Committee voted earlier this month to send the proposal to the full council after assurances from Johnson that the new school would not take funds from other units.
Johnson said the school’s faculty would come primarily from the political science department, but it would also draw on faculty from other campus units with an interest in international affairs, public service, public management and politics.
He said much of the funding to start the school would come from state and private sources, adding that he has “very promising” indications that the necessary money can be raised.
Johnson said the school would work closely with UGA’s other schools and colleges, and especially with departments in the College of Arts and Sciences, to train students for careers in public service and to foster research and scholarship in domestic and international affairs and issues of public management.
The Executive Committee also voted to send the council two proposed calendars for the 2002–2003 academic year. Both reschedule a fall break for students so the break doesn’t occur on the Thursday and Friday prior to the Georgia-Florida football game.
The break was held in 2000 and will be held this year. Some faculty members, as well as the press and public, have criticized the break as contrary to the university’s academic purpose.
One proposed calendar sets the break on the Monday and Tuesday following the semester midpoint, which occurs the second week in October.
The other adds two days to the three-day Thanksgiving holiday. The council’s Educational Affairs Committee recommended the five-day Thanksgiving break. But most Executive Committee members favored a recess earlier in the semester; the Thanksgiving break occurs only a week before the end of classes.
Both calendars move the spring semester break for 2003 later into March to coincide with spring break for Clarke County public schools. |
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