The calendar didn’t do any favors for Kansas University officials hoping to schedule their fourth annual Open House.

Today’s Open House is significantly scaled back from those offered the last three years, which brought thousands to Mount Oread for booths, activities, demonstrations and games.

“It was clear we had no good option for the kind of formal, extensive Open House we’ve had the last three years,” said Kevin Boatright, interim executive vice chancellor for university relations. “The scheduling problems were quite serious.”

That’s because KU offers the event in conjunction with a home football game. Boatright said last week wouldn’t work because it was Labor Day. Sept. 25, when KU plays host to Texas Tech, is Yom Kippur.

The only October home game, on Oct. 9 against Kansas State, is KU’s Homecoming.

“And we felt on Nov. 6 or 13, the weather would be iffy,” Boatright said.

So KU officials settled on providing a small Open House today, though this already was Band Day and Family Weekend.

“We didn’t feel we could add another big event on Sept. 11,” Boatright said. “It’s a day that’s already a day of remembrance for the 2001 terrorist attacks. We were afraid of putting too much on one day.”

From 10 a.m. to noon,several academic units will have open houses, including departments of geology, education, physics and astronomy, Germanic languages and literatures, French and Italian, Slavic languages and literatures, Spanish and Portuguese, business, geography, chemical and petroleum engineering, theater and film, and honors.

Boatright hopes KU will resume its full-scale Open House next year.

“We tend to think every day is Open House at KU,” he said. “Everybody is welcome any time and any day of the year. But it’s nice to organize it such that departments and units make an effort to show off what it is we do at the university and how we benefit the state of Kansas.”