New Princeton Calendar Moves Reunions One Week Earlier Beginning in 2028

Starting in 2028, Reunions and Commencement will take place a week earlier, following a faculty vote to move up the start of the spring semester. After the cancellation of Wintersession, the Faculty Committee on Classrooms and Schedule unanimously voted to endorse the proposal due to concerns that the five-week winter break could lead to learning loss and negative impacts on mental health. The move also puts Princeton more in line with peer institutions and enables seniors participating in NCAA postseason events to avoid conflicts with finals and attend Commencement activities.

The spring semester will begin six days earlier, on the Tuesday after Jan. 16, which in most years is the day following the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. The change will take effect beginning in the 2027-28 academic year.

Reunions 2028 will take place May 11-14, two weeks before Memorial Day, the earliest it has been in the last three decades and likely the earliest it has ever been. “We look forward to working with our wonderful alumni volunteers to plan Reunions for 2028 and beyond; they will be a bit earlier, but as amazing as ever,” said Jennifer Caputo, deputy vice president for alumni engagement, via email.

At the full faculty vote in April, Flora Champy, associate professor of French, was the sole opposing vote. She told PAW that faculty will “have just less time to recover from the fall semester, to celebrate the holidays with family, and then to prepare [for] the spring semester. And we are not going to get any research done.”