The University of Massachusetts Faculty Senate approved the use of a survey to test student support for starting and ending the spring semester two weeks early.

This year classes started on January 29 and will run through May 15. The earliest the calendar change would occur is the 2010 spring semester.

A random 10 percent of students will be asked to take the survey. Those students will weigh whether getting out two weeks earlier is worth having a shorter winter break and a different spring semester than the rest of the Five College Consortium.

According to the survey, “It has been suggested that by starting and ending spring semester two weeks earlier, students might have an easier time gaining competitive summer internships and co-ops, and in getting summer jobs.”

This is echoed in the Facebook group Gargano’s Official Petition for A New Academic Calendar.

“Basically, a new academic calendar is in order. We want to reduce the long winter session. We want a calendar that matches the calendars of our friends at universities that have the characteristics of an earlier September start, an earlier December finish, an earlier January start and a very early May completion,” wrote Caroline Moss, a student who works in the Office of Student Affairs.

The survey is less forward about changing the fall semester. It states that there is no proposal under consideration to change the fall semester, but asks if plans considered how supportive students would be.

This year, classes began within two days of each other at all five colleges for both semesters. If the start date for classes at UMass were to be moved back, five college students might have difficulties taking classes at UMass. They would either have to come back two weeks early or miss the first two weeks of class.