Like so many Coop rebates or vending machine Kit-Kats, reading period just got smaller.

While past reading periods have fluctuated to include up to 16 days, the council voted yesterday to standardize the fall and spring term reading periods, making each 12 days long.

The most immediate impact on students will be felt in the 1994 spring term. The council yesterday voted to shrink the reading period by four days and to add five instructional days.

Before the Faculty Council's action yesterday the instruction period for the spring semester averaged between four and nine days less than the fall.

The change was instituted to stabilize the academic calendar which shifts every year, according to Secretary to the Faculty John B. Fox Jr. '59.

Fox said that professors find it disconcerting to teach when they have to modify their curricula each year to fit the changing academic calendar.

In response to an Undergraduate Council proposal, the College experimented last year with a nine-day exam period. This year the Faculty decided to return to the 11-day format, but it plans to try a nine-day exam period again next year.

An Undergraduate Council survey conducted earlier this year showed that students prefer the shorter exam period, said Bradley W. Setser '94. co-chair ofthe Undergraduate Council's academic committee.

Faculty Council members also met with HarvardManagement Company President Jack R. Meyer.According to Fox faculty members had discussedtheir concerns with the management of HMC and theUniversity endowment's performance in comparisonto other schools.

The Faculty Council is very interested in theendowment's performance because small percentageshifts can mean million of dollars for the Facultyof Arts and Sciences, Fox said