Four options are on the table for the Penn State academic calendar creating the potential for a week less of classes and possibly even eliminating finals week.

Faculty Senate will have a forensics session on Tuesday to discuss the calendar.

The four options include: sticking with the current calendar, a 15-week semester with no set finals period, a 14-week semester with extended class time and a week of finals and a 14-week schedule with a final exam period in the 15th week.

The Undergraduate Student Government Academic Assembly supports the second and fourth options.

"The senate has not reached a definite decision yet," said Loren Filson, Assembly president. "But there are advantages to both choices."

Faculty Senate has been addressing this issue since last year.

The calendar revision is being considered because of concerns about absences, study days, fall break and Thanksgiving, among other matters.

Town Sen. Jason Covener asked at last Tuesday's Faculty Senate meeting if the Assembly discussed how the schedule will work with the plan excluding finals week.

"The idea behind it is that it would promote innovation in teaching," Filson said during the meeting. "Rather than your traditional 40-percent-of-your-grade final exam, perhaps more students would go into things like papers, projects, Web sites, etc.

"We would make sure there's a procedure in place for conflict (and) overload, but we think this can improve education," Filson said.

A concern of the 14-week semester is that some courses would have to be changed to cover the same material in a shorter time frame.

"One idea is to just eliminate a week of classes, in which we would be fine in the Big Ten," Filson said.

Penn State currently has 75 weeks of school, while the average university has 69 weeks.

During the organization's first meeting of the semester, Andre Vieira, a representative from the College of Engineering on the Assembly, expressed concern about the fourth option.

"The problem is that with a shorter semester, the final will count more, and there will be less time for projects," he said.

The Assembly also discussed problems with the other options. Although the second option may encourage smaller exams, classes will be in session during the exam week. Also, option three would allow fewer classes between fall break and Thanksgiving.

Starting classes after Labor Day, eliminating fall break altogether or incorporating the break into the week of Thanksgiving were also discussed by the Assembly.