Humanities professors and scholars want revision of year division 8-8-4
A group of professors and researchers at the Faculty of Humanities wants to get rid of the 8-8-4 academic year schedule (again), which was introduced throughout the UvA in 2012, but already met with much resistance at the faculty at the time. The group has sent a letter to the faculty Board urging for a different year division.
A group of seventeen teachers and researchers from the Faculty of Humanities (FH), led by Dutch language specialists Marrigje Paijman and Stephan Besser, both assistant professors of Dutch language and literature, have sent a letter to the faculty Board urging a change to the current 8-8-4 academic year division. This was introduced in 2012, but even then it met with a lot of resistance, particularly from the Faculty of Humanities. In the existing academic year, the academic year is divided into two semesters, each consisting of blocks of two eight-week terms and one four-week term.
Because this academic year is organised throughout the UvA, it is easy for students at other faculties and programmes (and the VU) to take a course or work group at the FH. At the time, the UvA Board thought this would benefit interdisciplinarity. However, there was already a lot of resistance at the time because the faculty has so many programmes, which makes it difficult to schedule classes within the faculty under the 8-8-4 system and results in a high workload.
Budget cuts
The cutbacks, which the FH cannot escape, have prompted the group to once again try to introduce a different academic year at the faculty. The reason for this is the fear that the cutbacks and the proposed solutions will lead to “an increasing workload for professors”. To prevent this, the letter writers argue that “less work should be done in a less stressful way”. They therefore propose “a shorter academic year and a smarter annual schedule”.
In practice, the critics argue that the 8-8-4 system is actually a 7-7-4 system because the first week of the eight-week blocks is “free of teaching” and the short four-week blocks in the faculty “are filled in many ways – educationally intensive, educationally low-key or a fusion of subjects, whereby the different approaches sometimes also run along and through each other within the programmes”. So it is time for something different, now that the cutbacks mean that thinking about working efficiently yet sustainably. “The 8-8-4 structure is accompanied by a long academic year and a large number of exam periods,” they write. “Research shows that the Dutch academic year is very long and very intensive compared to other European universities (which are in comparable or higher positions than the UvA in international rankings).”
From 8-8-4 to 8-8
The group proposes, for example, a four-block system (two semesters with two eight-week blocks each). “This would reduce the workload for teachers and create more breathing space and moments of rest within the blocks and in the academic year as a whole. Students would have more time to process the material in a safe learning environment.” How this will end is still unclear, because previously the UvA always wanted to have a uniform annual schedule without exceptions of individual faculties.….. unless the group manages to persuade other faculties to participate in the alternative proposal and make it the new uniform year division throughout the UvA.
