The View from 30,000 Feet: The New 15-Week Semester

[The View from 30,000 Feet is an occasional entry that offers a big-picture view of some of the topics covered on this blog.]

A Google search of the phrase "employee morale strategic management" returns the following AI response: "Strategic management of employee morale involves a continuous, multifaceted approach including fostering open communication and transparency, providing opportunities for growth and development, recognizing and appreciating employee contributions, empowering managers to lead empathetically, promoting flexibility and well-being, and actively listening to and incorporating employee feedback to build trust and a positive, high-performing work environment." A search of that phrase seems relevant to the recent news that USG institutions can now include final exam meeting time as part of instructional time, meaning that CSU's current 16-week semester will become a 15-week semester. As indicated there, this new rule brings the USG in line with public institutions in other states. It also represents, as the post points out, a modest raise for CSU faculty, 85% of whom did not receive any of last month's merit raise allocation that was distributed to only the top 15% of CSU faculty. For sure, cutting the academic year's 32-week contract to one consisting of only 30 weeks represents something akin to a workload reduction of 6.25%. This does translate to a modest raise for faculty, however the final detail in the recent post is that this change will not begin until August of 2027, or about 22 months from now. The development of three vaccines for a novel virus took only 10 or 11 months. One would think that those in a position to do so would move mountains to start this new 15-week semester in August of 2026, if not January of 2026, particularly given the potential for "recognizing and appreciating employee contributions" and "promoting . . . well-being" that doing such represents.