I am choosing this medium since, as far as I know, no staff meeting is
planned for the foreseeable future. A "Dear All" email strikes me as the
most effective way of establishing a forum whereby everybody can be
apprised of the problem and of the urgent need for a swift consensual
solution.
As if we didn't have enough problems what with our rapidly increasing
intake etc., we now have a brand-new problem in connection with our
exchange with the University of Hull. Now that Hull, like many other
British universities, have decided in their infinite wisdom to go for
"European"-style semesters rather than good old English terms -
presumably in the interests of international compatibility - what is the
result? Well, their first semester runs from something like early
September to mid-January and their second semester from the end of Jan
to the end of June. So far, so idiosyncratic.
What this means for those of our students who wish to avail themselves
of the exchange programme by going to Hull for Hull's second semester
is, however, that they have to leave Aachen before the winter semester
is over - thereby possibly missing the last two or three sessions of our
classes. Our partners in Hull have written only this week to "remind" us
that they cannot possibly accept any students who don't turn up at the
beginning of term - or, to be more precise, in the week BEFORE the
beginning of term for their (undeniably indispensable) induction
sessions for new students.
Since we, in OUR infinite wisdom, have only just decided (at our last
staff meeting) to fix the maximum allowable number of absences from
class at two per semester, any student wishing to go to Hull in Jan/Feb
might just as well take the current Aachen semester off because they
will not qualify for any Schein in any course.

If I might make so bold as to propose a solution - it seems to me that
the situation calls for a pragmatic approach: I think we should adhere
to the spirit of our own decision rather than insisting on the letter.
In other words, we should make an exception for students who find
themselves in the dilemma I have described. In my view, we have an
overriding interest as a Department, on the one hand in maintaining our
exchange programme and on the other hand in obviating unnecessary
hardship for individual students, who otherwise risk being crushed
between the wheels of two incompatible and implacable systems.
I personally would be prepared to dream up some alternative extra
activity for any student concerned - to make up for their missing two or
three sessions of my own classes. No problem - but of course it would be
nice to know that I am not thereby going out on a limb (or ending in limbo).

A footnote:

Ironically, just as the TH has finally realised that having two
semesters of unequal length is A BAD IDEA, what do Hull do? They
re-structure their only recently introduced two-semester system so that
one of them is four months and the other five months in length.
EUROPEan?!

Yours
PHM