David Borofsky, interim provost, announced that he will suggest to the provost’s council not to implement the proposed schedule changes and J-term. He said he did not think there would be any trouble getting the suggestion passed by the provost’s council.

Borofsky made the announcement at a town hall meeting on Nov. 30.

The provost’s council is made up of administrative vice presidents, deans and the staff who report to the provost.

Borofsky credits student communication with helping him make his final decision regarding the schedule changes.

“It is important to know that you all have a voice in what we are doing,” Borofsky said.

The schedule change proposal came from Project Magis. The proposed schedule would create room for a two week January term and a two week May term.

“The May term was pretty easy to do, because we had enough days between the end of the spring semester and the beginning of the summer semester to create this small May term,” Borofsky said.

However, the J-term was more difficult to accommodate, according to Borofsky. It would have required moving the start of spring semester back a couple of weeks.

Borofsky said the J-terms and May terms were thought up to help with retention and to offer course options for local, non-Loyola students during university breaks. However, after a meeting with faculty and an SGA student representative, Borofsky began to question those reasons.

“I’m not convinced other students from other universities are going to come here to take a course when they could hop online,” Borofsky said.

He also said it would be difficult for students who had failed a 16 week course to pass it in only two weeks.

“I have decided to make the recommendation to the provost’s council that we do nothing about the spring 2019 calendar, that it stay exactly the same as it will for 2018 and as it was 2017,” Borofsky said.

There will still be a May-term this spring, following the end of spring semester. It will not affect the spring semester schedule.

Borofsky said he would like to use this topic as an example of effective student feedback and participation.

“Your voices do matter. It is important for you to give us this feedback,” Borofsky said.