At the meeting, ECAC members sent the recommendations to three committees for review. The three recommendations came out of a committee formed to examine the current arrangement of the academic year, Youatt said in an e-mail.

The proposed changes come after years without review of the calendar, MSU Provost Kim Wilcox said after the meeting.

“We hadn’t looked at (the calendar) in a long time — I couldn’t tell you how many years, decades — and lots of things have changed over time,” Wilcox said. “It was seen as time to review the entire calendar.”

Under the proposed changes, Youatt said seniors graduating in the fall could take final exams before commencement. Currently, fall graduation takes place the weekend before final exams.

Students and faculty with family members in the Ingham County Public Schools could spend spring break together, thanks to the potential spring break shift. Spring break for Ingham County Public Schools currently is scheduled to begin April 2 this year.

“There have been suggestions for as long as I’ve been here that MSU sync its break with schools in Ingham County so families could enjoy that overlap,” Youatt said.

The third proposed schedule change is a January sub-term, which would occur during the first two weeks of the month, Youatt said in the e-mail. The sub-term would allow students the option to take a course on campus or abroad. Students who did not enroll for a class during the sub-term would most likely start spring classes the day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Spring semester would end one week later with the addition of the sub-term, Youatt said during Tuesday’s meeting.

“The more we looked at it, it seems like a pretty manageable thing to do,” Youatt told ECAC members.

Proposed human medicine departments

Also discussed during Tuesday’s ECAC meeting was the establishment of three new academic departments in MSU’s College of Human Medicine.

Wilcox said during the meeting he approved the establishment of the departments, which include anaesthesia, emergency medicine, and translational science and molecular medicine. The three programs would be offered at the College of Human Medicine’s Grand Rapids campus.

“We are growing our medical education programs across the state and this is an opportunity for us to move into three areas we haven’t been before,” he said after the meeting.

The proposals — which ECAC members sent to Faculty Affairs and Graduate Council — are part of the College of Human Medicine’s expansion, said Geri Kelley, communications manager for the college. The expansion is expected to nearly double the size of the college, Kelley said.

“Ultimately, half of our college is going to be located on campus at MSU as it always has been,” Kelley said.

“The other half will be in Grand Rapids. It’s one of the largest medical school expansions happening in the country.”

Staff writer Zane McMillin contributed to this article.