By Lindsay Crone
With a new academic schedule under semesters, student groups on campus must adapt their activities and events to fit the new academic calendar.
“The biggest challenge is the space and weather,” said Brooke Tempesta, associate director of student activities. “April is usually a full month, but with semester conversion, we end in April, so outdoor events move to Summer I or do not happen.”
With a push for more indoor activities, groups have found that space is especially limited; afterHOURS is completely booked for the rest of this semester, Tempesta said. Matthews Arena and Blackman Auditorium, two other popular venues, also have tight schedules.
Student groups are affected in different ways depending on how flexible their schedules are.
For Greek life, semester conversion has caused events to be crammed into a smaller amount of time since sororities and fraternities are inactive in the summer.
“We have not eliminated any events, but the quality of things we do is a little less,” said Panhellenic Council President Jennifer Gauthier. “There’s not as many nights to plan things since other student organizations are trying to plan things as well. In the future, maybe people will be more likely to work together.”
The shorter schedule has made it unlikely that the Northeastern University Bisexual, Lesbian, Gay, Straight and Trangendered Alliance (NUBi-LAGA) will be able to participate as a group in the Youth Pride Parade in May, which was a big event for them under the quarter system. Also, there are many conferences in the spring they will not be able to take part in, said Jessica Maxfield, the director of public relations for NUBiLAGA.
Since the Student Govern-ment Association (SGA) does not hold many events in the spring, the conversion had more of an impact on the issues and policies the SGA advocates for, said President Michael Romano. Also, the structure of their constitution needed to be changed and elections will now be held in April, even though the current position does not end until July, Romano said.
The time constraints also forced traditions to be changed.
“There’s one ceremony that has been held since 1924 called ‘Passing the Gavel’ we might squeeze in this year, but it will be less formal,” Romano said.
Some groups chose to deal with semester conversion by planning for it early. The Council for University Programming (CUP) was proactive about working with the semester conversion by having a retreat in the fall and looking at the dates they had to work with and making goals, said Tempesta, the advisor for CUP.
Some class councils also planned ahead for the conversion.
“I think the Class of 2007 Class Council has done a great job planning its bigger events in the fall and focusing on smaller or co-sponsored events in the spring,” said Beth-Anne Dancause, the advisor for the Class of 2007 Class Council.
Some student groups, such as the United Nations Association, didn’t need to make any changes because their activities run from October to April. However, they organized a new conference that will be held in May that seniors won’t be able to attend, said president of UNA Michael Kofman.
“The real problem for all student groups is that people who sign up for events after April don’t know their plans and are not dependable,” Kofman said.
