As families start to book flights to Philadelphia and reserve hotel rooms to celebrate the graduation of their favorite Penn student, they might be a little surprised to find that they'll be heading to the City of Brotherly Love a little earlier than usual.
And to the dismay of many students, winter break has been cut short by a full week.
The entire spring semester of the University's calendar has been moved up to hold Commencement on May 13, a week earlier than in the past -- allowing Philadelphia to capitalize on the profits of a major national convention coming to the city the following week.
Both the University's Commencement activities and the convention were originally scheduled for the weekend of May 17-19. But as the city does not currently have the hotel space to accommodate the travel from both the American Psychiatric Association's annual convention and Commencement, Penn was forced to shift graduation festivities to a week earlier than usual -- shortening winter break by one week.
The Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau, looking to use the APA convention to pump cash into the local economy, requested this favor of Penn in 1997. After weighing several options, the University agreed to hold Commencement on May 13 instead of May 20, when the event would have otherwise been held.
According to Tom Muldoon, president of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, his organization asked the University to change dates because it would have lost the APA convention -- and the millions in revenue expected to come with it -- to another city.
"The APA couldn't move dates, or they couldn't come to Philadelphia," Muldoon said.
According to Danielle Cohn, also of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, the APA convention is worth $12 million in delegate spending, which means the city will make $12 million on hotels, food and other expenses.
The bureau expects 15,000 attendees at the APA's 155th annual convention, which will be held from May 18-23 at the downtown Pennsylvania Convention Center.
With Penn's Commencement attendance estimated at 20,000 people -- and with only 15,000 rooms available in the Philadelphia area -- the bureau decided that the two events could not take place concurrently.
But for students, the conflict over hotel space with the convention means they will now have only two weeks between spring and fall semesters as opposed to the traditional three.
Spring semester classes will start on Jan. 7 in 2002; in 2001, classes started on Jan. 16.
The end of spring term classes, reading days and final exams are also pushed up a week earlier than usual.
The decision, like all other calendar changes, was approved by the Council of Undergraduate Deans, which consulted with Penn's various schools and the university president.
"No one was very happy about it," said Linda Koons, executive assistant to the provost. "It wasn't an easy decision."
Many students said they are feeling slighted by their curtailed vacation time.
"This sort of thing shouldn't take precedence over our academic calendar," College sophomore Joanna Visser said. "But of course, it's not the end of the world."
Penn considered several alternatives before agreeing to the arrangement four years ago.
"We tried moving Commencement a few days earlier, but that would interfere with the Jewish Sabbath," Koons said. "We also thought of moving it to the middle of the week, but no one's been happy when we've done that in the past."
Penn also looked into holding Commencement on its original date, but deemed it impossible.
"It would have involved sending people into New Jersey," Koons said.
This year's schedule has proven itself a nuisance to many students.
"It's pretty inconvenient for me," College junior Allison Zajac said. "My parents are divorced, so I have to fly to both Pittsburgh and Chicago. It's hard to visit all my family in two weeks" during winter break.
However, some students said they are ambivalent about the calendar change -- in fact, many are glad about finishing earlier.
"If it means we get out sooner, it's fine with me," Engineering junior Arika Goel said. "And we still get two solid weeks for winter break."
This is not the first time the city has asked Penn to move its Commencement date -- the event was rescheduled in 1994 due to the APA convention.
However, neither the University nor the Convention and Visitors Bureau foresee any future Commencement reschedulings. Muldoon said that although the APA convention is scheduled again for 2011, the city plans to build enough hotel space to accommodate both events.
"We don't expect this to happen again," Muldoon said. "And whenever I run into your president, she reminds me of that."
Next year, the academic calendar returns to normal, and students will once again have their traditional three-week winter break.
"When it comes down to it, it's only a week," Visser said. "But people understandably get touchy when something cuts into their time off."
