Labor Day was last week. You moved into your residence hall a few days ago. Classes start today. If you feel like school started early this year, it did! That’s because this week Northeastern University converted its full-time undergraduate and graduate programs from an academic quarter system to a new semester calendar. Graduate classes started Monday and undergraduate courses began at 8 a.m. today! The beginning of classes this week actually represents three years of preparation by faculty, academic advisers, co-op coordinators, administrators, staff and your fellow students to help get you ready for the semester conversion. Since becoming Provost last year, I have been committed to ensuring the long-term success of Northeastern’s semester conversion. Executive Vice Provost Coleen Pantalone has spearheaded this effort since 2000 when the Faculty Senate approved the change to the new academic calendar. Along with Senior Vice Presidents Philomena Mantella and Larry Mucciolo, we have provided the strategic direction, financial resources, and ongoing communication to support the progress of this institutional transition. However, the process has been a university-wide effort. The faculty redesigned the curricula to accommodate the semester schedule, while ensuring that it meets Academic Common Experience (ACE) requirements, diversity requirements, and accreditation standards. It has also been restructured so that your classroom education experiences are better integrated with your co-op learning experiences. Academic advisors spent countless hours last year helping students determine which courses to take in their final year of the quarter system so they could stay on track for graduation under the semester calendar. In preparation for the semester conversion, the Cooperative Education Division reviewed co-op placements, streamlined the offerings, and organized the jobs by skill requirements, experience level, major and geographic location. This effort is intended to enhance the overall quality of your co-op placements and ensure a closer integration with your classroom studies. The Registrar’s Office converted returning students’ quarter hour credits to semester hour credits and published a Semester Course Equivalencies Handbook that cites the semester equivalent for every quarter course and vice-versa. The Registrar’s Office and Information Services implemented a new course registration system in time for the semester conversion. With this new software, we are able to monitor student demand for courses and, if additional sections are needed, we can add courses and in some cases increase section capacity during registration to help meet the demand. Students who have tried to register for a course that is full should go to the Registrar’s website at www.registrar.neu.edu/course_schedules.htm to see if new sections have been added. Student Financial Services took on the monumental task of converting students’ financial aid from the quarter system to the semester system. They created an online financial planning tool, the “SemEstimator” to help students and parents determine their tuition payments for this year. Financial aid counselors worked with students and parents to help them understand how the new calendar would affect the timing of bills and aid disbursement, while not impacting the overall tuition and institutional aid package for the student’s degree. The Student Government Association and The Northeastern News played key roles in communicating the importance to students of getting ready for semester conversion this fall. Student representatives were involved in the work of the semester committees that were charged with managing the myriad details of this major transition. So, today is an opportunity to say “thank you” to everyone for their past efforts to prepare for semester conversion. It is also the day to eagerly look ahead to a new school year on a new academic calendar. Good luck and welcome back!

Ahmed T. Abdelal Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs