This winter break, some students will be dragging luggage home six days later due to a shortened academic calendar.

Final examinations for the fall semester end on Dec. 19 this year compared to Dec. 13 of last year.

According to Louis Hunt, university registrar, the goal of the calendar committee was to shorten the semester as much as possible. Hunt said to accomplish this, the committee decided to reduce winter break and consider possibly taking an additional day away from spring break.

“It’s a little better calendar than what we had, I think,” Hunt said.

Hunt said the current calendar is the shortest option that provides seven full days for exams without scheduling exams on Saturdays, and it allows fall semester classes to start on a Wednesday.

“This is the tightest [option],” he said.According to the UNC Policy Manual, academic calendars are required to include a minimum of 75 class days per semester and 150 class days per year. Calendars must also include at least 750 minutes of “instructional time” per credit hour.

“It’s pretty much the shortest [the calendar] can be to comply with the UNC policy,” Hunt said.

Hunt said the calendar committee presented the option of changing the exam schedule to students but “there wasn’t much support.”

“The length of exam time drives quite a bit of [the calendar design],” he said.

Despite a shorter semester overall, some students still feel affected by the belated winter break.

Emma Kiely, an exchange student from Scotland, said arriving home a few days later means “you’ve missed a few Christmas things.”

“It makes it more worthwhile if we have longer [time],” Kiely said.

Kat Siegert, a freshman in business management, said the exam schedule is affecting the amount of time she will see family and old friends when she travels home to Virginia.

“I’m pretty ticked off because I have a whole bunch of friends that are in Virginia and I will have less time to spend with them,” Siegert said.

Alex Deslauriers, a sophomore in animal science, agreed.

“It cuts into our vacation time,” Deslauriers said.

Jessica Brooks, a sophomore in civil engineering, said students need a longer break to prepare for the next semester.

“The one month break was more adequate to prepare you for the next semester,” Brooks said.

Some students accepted the later winter break with the consideration that school also started six days later this fall compared to fall 2005.

Jose Tan, a senior in chemical engineering, said he will miss being part of holiday preparations. However, he understands the reasoning behind starting winter break so late.

“We started late, we finish late,” he said. “That’s normal.”

Steamboat Rock, a junior in mathematics, agreed with Tan.

“I think it’s the same thing since school starts later,” he said.

James Murray, an exchange student from Dundee, said since his base school examinations usually finish on Dec. 10, it’s only five days difference for him.

“It’s not that big of a deal to me,” Murray said.

One student felt winter break was worth starting school sooner.

“I wouldn’t have minded coming to school a little earlier, so exams could’ve ended at a nicer time,” Megan Brown, a sophomore in chemical engineering, said.