CU Boulder discontinues winter commencement, adds more study time before finals

Starting next fall, changes to CU’s academic calendar will push finals week to start a day later and eventually lead to the discontinuance of winter commencement.

CU Student Government passed a vote in May that moved the beginning of finals week to 4 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon instead of Saturday morning at 7:30.

Senior economics and environmental studies major Melissa Pohutsky, 21, was one one of many students pleased with CUSG’s decision to slightly extend study time.

“I think it would be a good idea to not go directly from a class to taking a final,” Pothutsky said.

CUSG’s change to the academic calendar was also approved by CU Administration and the Chancellors Executive Cabinet. The return of study days comes 15 years after their original establishment in 1999, according to a CU announcement released Thursday.

“You have to take into account the heavy workload for students,” said Juedon Kebede, a CUSG representative-at-large.

CU is not the first school to push for more study time before finals. New York University and the University of California-Berkeley give their students two days before finals, and Harvard University and others give their students an entire “dead week” before exams.

Junior chemical and biological engineering major Katya Pokhilchuk, 20, said the change will help those who juggle jobs and classes.

“People work and if finals are cramped together with school, you have no time,” Pokhilchuk said. “Now, you can still study and work before finals, so that’s nice.”

The addition of more study days means CU will no longer have a winter commencement ceremony starting in 2017. This initiative was designed to prevent running commencement into winter break and to cut spending, the release said.

CUSG knew that winter commencement would be affected due to time constraints when they passed their vote in May.

“We have tried to work with the provost and talk out some of the details,” said Chris Schaefbauer, CUSG president of student affairs. “The idea is really great but we want to be aware of the impacts.”

CU’s college and department recognition ceremonies will not be affected, the announcement said.

“I think some students really value that experience to have their parents engaged,” Schaefbauer said. “We might want to talk about alternative ways to really make sure people get recognized.”

Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Ari Browne at Shikari.browne@colorado.edu, twitter/aricbrowne