St. Thomas students can expect to see a change in finals week this fall.

The change will push the original Study Monday to Thursday, Dec. 15, instead. Classes will end Wednesday, Dec. 14, and finals will begin Thursday night and continue Friday. Finals week will finish the following Wednesday, Dec. 21.

Michael Jordan, associate vice president for undergraduate studies and academic advisement, said the change was made because “something important changed [this year] … the administration had decided to cancel December commencement.”

“Since we no longer have to worry about a December commencement, which had to be on a Friday, we had some additional flexibility that we could use to try to lengthen the semester a little bit for purposes of academic integrity,” Jordan said.

Jordan said the change was also made because Christmas falls on a Sunday, and because St. Thomas aims to have 70 class days in a semester. Students will have 68 class days in the semester and finish fall semester four days before Christmas.

“That’s not a lot of Christmas shopping time,” junior Cali David said.

Jordan said ending Friday, Dec. 23, would not be a good idea.

“We could have achieved a class schedule with 70 class days, 14 full weeks of classes, if we had used that week of December ending on Friday, Dec. 23, as the final exam week,” Jordan said.

Sophomore Taylor Harp said she enjoyed having a three-day weekend before finals.

“Normally with finals, you have the whole weekend prior to Study Monday to study, and then you are prepared for finals to start at the beginning of that week, rather than having classes and then only one day and go right into finals,” Harp said. “Because when you have that weekend, you basically have three study days.”

Some other students said they disliked the finals week changes, too.

“It’s definitely going to change my study habits. One of the things that I liked about Study Monday is that you can study all weekend for it,” junior Matt Ellenberger said. “I think it’s definitely going to be hard if teachers teach up to that Study Thursday. It’s going to be kind of rushed. You would have to prioritize more, which is definitely not my strong suit.”

Junior Katie Schafer said, “It is nice to have that defined gap between classes and finals week, where you’ve got that three days to figure out what you need to do and when everything is the following week.”

Harp said her former school, St. Mary’s University, had a similar schedule, but she didn’t like it.

“It’s going to be really rushed,” Harp said. “Even though we will still have Saturday or Sunday, you could possibly have a final Thursday night or Friday.”

David said she “wouldn’t mind being done earlier in the week, like on Wednesday.”

Jordan said this is the first time in his 29 years at St. Thomas that the schedule has not followed the traditional Monday to Friday finals week routine.

Although Jordan said it was a tough decision to make, he added, “Having a weekend that intervenes in the midst of finals week seemed reasonably acceptable.”

But Jordan said the change was a temporary one.

“For the next few years we will not have the problem of too few class days in the fall semester, and we will be able to stick to the usual schedule of a Monday through Friday final examination week,” Jordan said. “We will consider using the model we are introducing for 2011 again only if necessary to achieve a minimum of 68 class days.”

January term classes begin Monday, Jan. 2, giving students about a week and a half between the end of fall semester and the beginning of J-term.