LSU announces changes to spring semester schedule, some Saturday classes added

By Reveille Staff Report

February 23, 2021

LSU Nicholson Gateway apartments sits Monday, Feb. 15, 2021 during the winter weather mix on Nicholson Drive in Baton Rouge, La.

The end date of the spring 2021 semester, May 1, will not be pushed back after four class days were cancelled due to hazardous conditions relating to the winter storm, Vice Provost Matthew Lee said.

The University announced in an email Feb. 22 that makeup days are as follows:

Saturday, March 6, will be the make-up day for Feb. 15
Friday, March 12, will be the make-up day for Feb. 19
Thursday, March 25, will be the make-up day for Feb. 18
Saturday, April 10, will be the make-up day for Feb. 17

According to the email, the University will delay posting midterm grades by one week to March 16. All other academic calendar deadlines are unchanged.

“We’re not going to push the semester back — we know people were trying to plan for graduation, they were ending their leases for the end of April — so the end of the semester will hold,” Lee said.

According to the email, faculty will decide whether to hold make-up classes in-person or virtually.

A few Saturday make-up days will be issued throughout the remainder of the semester, and some one-day breaks that were originally scheduled will be rescinded, Lee said.

“I totally understand not everyone is going to be happy about it, but it’s just an act of God where four days were missed that have to be made up,” Lee said.

Academic Affairs reviewed several solutions for the new academic calendar and determined that this was the best route that would disrupt everyone’s schedule the least.

“We reviewed three or four solutions, not everyone was going to be happy with all of them, so we had to come up with something that held us to the same start and end dates for the semester and try to work with what we have in the middle there,” Lee said.

Lee said that Academic Affairs kept students’ schedules in mind while making this decision, trying to be respectful of the pre-planned engagements many of them would have.

“People have summer plans — ending their leases at the end of April, families have already made plans to come in at the end of the semester, as they frequently do, people start internships at co-ops and often those are out of town,” Lee said. “It’s complicated, you start moving the end of the semester around and it causes all kinds of problems. We had to make a call.”