Spring Break
Univ considers creating additional vacation day
by Rebecca Klein
Editorial assistant
News | 11/18/08
Posted online at 3:06 AM EST on 11/18/08
A Faculty Senate task force conducted a faculty-wide survey regarding the possibility of making the Wednesday before Thanksgiving a holiday in future years and instead holding an additional day of classes, most likely on Labor Day.
In order to hear the opinions of other faculty members, the survey conducted in the last week of October asked how the faculty would feel about holding class on Labor Day. The results of the survey were presented at the Nov. 6 faculty meeting and showed that the faculty was generally not willing to make that trade, as 54.7 percent said no, while 29.5 percent said yes and 15.7 percent had no preference.
The task force has been exploring several alternatives to holding class on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving since its creation on Aug. 28 at the first senate meeting of the year. Some of these alternatives include starting the semester a day earlier, holding class on Labor Day, pushing back the final exam schedule by a day or having the day off on some years but not on others depending how early finals fall and the schedule of the Jewish holidays.
"None of those [options] is easy," said Prof. Judith Herzfeld (CHEM), a member of the task force committee.
"We put [the idea of] teaching on Labor Day out there due to the fact that it could be done relatively simply. It's kind of odd to have a three-day weekend right after you've had just one day of class on Thursday and one day of class on Friday," Herzfeld explained. "On the other hand, Labor Day is a historically important day."
"On the survey there was a very high response rate from faculty, which indicates their interest in the issue, and what's even more impressive was almost half of them actually wrote comments instead of just clicking the right buttons. So I think there's a lot of sentiment out there about this," Herzfeld explained.
Herzfeld told the Justice that it seemed as though the faculty thought there were several better alternatives to teaching on Labor Day. However, out of these alternatives, it has still been difficult to find one that could work.
In order to hear the opinions of other faculty members, the survey conducted in the last week of October asked how the faculty would feel about holding class on Labor Day. The results of the survey were presented at the Nov. 6 faculty meeting and showed that the faculty was generally not willing to make that trade, as 54.7 percent said no, while 29.5 percent said yes and 15.7 percent had no preference.
The task force has been exploring several alternatives to holding class on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving since its creation on Aug. 28 at the first senate meeting of the year. Some of these alternatives include starting the semester a day earlier, holding class on Labor Day, pushing back the final exam schedule by a day or having the day off on some years but not on others depending how early finals fall and the schedule of the Jewish holidays.
"None of those [options] is easy," said Prof. Judith Herzfeld (CHEM), a member of the task force committee.
"We put [the idea of] teaching on Labor Day out there due to the fact that it could be done relatively simply. It's kind of odd to have a three-day weekend right after you've had just one day of class on Thursday and one day of class on Friday," Herzfeld explained. "On the other hand, Labor Day is a historically important day."
"On the survey there was a very high response rate from faculty, which indicates their interest in the issue, and what's even more impressive was almost half of them actually wrote comments instead of just clicking the right buttons. So I think there's a lot of sentiment out there about this," Herzfeld explained.
Herzfeld told the Justice that it seemed as though the faculty thought there were several better alternatives to teaching on Labor Day. However, out of these alternatives, it has still been difficult to find one that could work.
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