Academic quarter (year division)

An academic quarter refers to the division of an academic year into four parts.

The modern academic quarter calendar can be traced to the historic English law court / legal training pupillage four term system:

This quarter system was adopted by the oldest universities in the English-speaking world (Oxford, founded circa 1096, and Cambridge, founded circa 1209).

Over time, Cambridge dropped Trinity Term and renamed Hilary Term to Lent Term, and Oxford also dropped the original Trinity Term and renamed Easter Term as Trinity Term, thus establishing the three-term academic "quarter" year widely found in countries with a lineage to England or the United Kingdom.

In the United States, quarters typically comprise 10 weeks of class instruction, although they have historically ranged from eight to 13 weeks. Academic quarters first came into existence as such when William Rainey Harper organized the University of Chicago on behalf of John D. Rockefeller in 1891. Harper decided to keep the school in session year-round and divide it into four terms instead of the then-traditional two.

Of the four traditional academic calendars (semester, quarter, trimester, and 4-1-4), the semester calendar is used the most widely, at over 60% of U.S. higher learning institutions, with fewer than 20% using the quarter system. This number has stayed fairly constant since 1930, when 75% of U.S. institutions surveyed indicated they used a semester plan, with 22% on the quarter system.

During the 1960s, a number of U.S. statewide educational systems made a switch from a semester to quarter system, typically in an attempt to accommodate the Tidal Wave I enrollment boom, most prominently the University of California system. Since then, UC Berkeley switched back to semesters in 1983, the new UC Merced branch opened with the semester system, and some UC professional schools have switched back to semesters at various points. At various points since, committees have been established and official discussions have taken place within the UC system to discuss a systemwide switch back to the semester system.

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