Fall Break Discussions and Poll

Poll Results from FAC-PA (as of Jan 20, 2000)

Yes, I would support a fall break	No, I would be against a fall break	I do NOT care
51	17	10

• Jim Togeas
  YES, I WOULD SUPPORT A TWO-DAY FALL BREAK, BUT I'M WORRIED IF IT WILL BE ANOTHER MONDAY. IF WE DO HAVE A BREAK, PLEASE GIVE SOME THOUGHT TO THE TIMING AND THE IMPACT THAT IT WILL HAVE ON SCHEDULING LABS WHICH MEET JUST ONCE A WEEK. WE ALREADY MISS ONE MONDAY DUE TO LABOR DAY. WILL MISSING ANOTHER MONDAY DUE TO FALL BREAK MAKE LAB SCHEDULING WORSE? I DON'T KNOW BUT WE'D BETTER BE CAREFUL. WE ALSO MISS A THURSDAY AND FRIDAY DUE TO THANKSGIVING. UNDER THE PROPOSED PLAN WE'D MISS TWO MONDAYS, A TUESDAY, A THURSDAY AND A FRIDAY. BUT PRESUMABALY WE'D START ON A THURSDAY. THE BOTTOM LINE IS THAT WE OUGHT TO MINIMIZE THE IMPACT ON SCHEDULING LABS. JIM
• Karen Fischer
  Before I can reply, I need some more information. What two days are we talking about? Will they be a Tues. Wed or Wed Thurs in the middle of a week or is the idea a four day weekend Friday Monday two days? The annual Minnesota Library Association conference is in the end of Sept./beginning of October. We have seldom sent staff because with the start of our quarters it is just too busy to spare people. We are looking forward to becoming more active in our profesional organization with the semester schedule. Depending on when the two day break might be, it could be a help or a hindrance, but I don't object to the concept. In general the library is open on holidays when classes are in session anyway. We were open on Labor Day weekend this year. Karen
• Jeff Ratliff-Crain
  Peh-- The break should occur right at the end of the 7.5 week period, so we're not interrupting any 1/2 semester courses just as they are finishing or any 2nd half courses as they are starting. Jeff
• Dave Roberts
  Dear Peh, Yes, I would support a fall break for UMM. Many faculty have kids and/or spouses in the Morris Area School System. This system has three, yes three!, two-day fall breaks before Thanksgiving. All of them are on Thursday-Friday, rather than Monday-Tuesday. I think a lot of people would appreciate it if UMM Fall break coincided with one of these Morris Area Fall breaks.
  I probably won't see you before tomorrow, when I take off to North Carolina with my family to visit my brother and his family. Have a Merry Christmas and see you in January! Dave Roberts
• Janet Kinney
  I think this (Fall Break) would help students and faculty a lot. Thanks. Janet
• Fred Farrell
  No, I would be against a fall break for UMM (NOT IF IT MEANS STARTING EARLIER; WHY ARE WE SO OBSESSED WITH THE NUMBER OF DAYS IN FQ; TC SEEMS TO BE ABLE TO GET ALONG WITH FEWER DAYS THAN WE AND I SEE NO REASON WHY WE SHOULD BE DIFFERENT.)
• Dave Aronson
  Peh: Last fall we started classes on Monday August 30th and opened the residence halls the previous Thursday, the 26th. This enabled three days of orientation, Thursday, Friday and Saturday and classes on Monday. A similar scenario is currently planned for the fall of 2000.
  To start classes two days earlier would mean starting classes on Thursday, August 24th. If we continued a long tradition of three days of orientation, that would mean opening the residence halls and starting orientation on Monday, August 21st. If we were to do that, we would probable want to open on Sunday, August 20th, since that would allow parents and students to arrive on a weekend.
  Though opening on a weekend (as we did for several years on the quarter system with classes starting on Wednesday) has some benefits for students moving to campus, it would in effect mean starting five days earlier to gain two "off" days in October. Many students with summer employment would need to quite their jobs that much earlier. That would mean bringing all of our student staff in the residence halls (RAs & RDs) back even earlier for training. The "costs" seem to outweigh the "benefits." Dave Aronson
  Response to Aronson:
  • However, Fall Break has the unanimous support from the MCSA Forum, and a large proportion of the UMM student body. They would rather come back a few days earlier than to be without a fall break.
  • How did we handle orientation during quarter system for Fall? Classes start on Wednesdays, orientation runs from Sat-Tue.
• Greg Thorson
  According to the 2000-2001 academic calendar published on the web ( http://www1.umn.edu/commpub/morris/calendar.html), we are currently scheduled to begin our classes on Monday, August 28th, 2000. The proposed change would result in classes beginning the prior week, presumably Thursday, August 24th. Although it may sound nice right now to take such a break, I'm very hesitant to begin classes earlier in the summer. It is valuable time for students, faculty, and families. As a result, mark me down as a "no". I would be much more receptive to a proposal that would shorten winter break or make graduation date a bit later.
• Seung-Ho Joo
  About 2-day fall break, I completely concur with Greg Thorson. To start classes on Aug. 24th would be too early. My research activities (including research-related trips abroad) would be greatly disrupted if we start the fall semester earlier. I already voted "NO", so don't count me again. I just wanted to express my own view on this matter.
• LeAnn Dean
  Peh--I would vote for a mid-semester break in the fall. I would also be in favor of arranging the schedule, even if it meant starting earlier, so that it isn't necessary to have orientation on a Saturday in August and finals on a Saturday in December. This is a purely self-centered/library-centered request. It is difficult to find students willing to work on the Saturday before classes start, as well as the last day of finals. Having union staff work on those days is problematic, also. There was some confusion about Saturday final exams last week. I relied on the class schedule, which indicated that there was only one exam on Saturday, Dec. 18--the T-Th 4:00 class was to have its final from 8:30 until 10:30 on Saturday. I understood later that there were many more finals scheduled for that day, though the campus at large hadn't been notified of that. Be that as it may, including Saturday for official activities is hard. So, if we started one whole week earlier, could we once again have First year students come on a Sunday, have orientation on Monday and Tuesday, classes begin on a Wednesday, a two day break, and have finals the last week on Tuesday-Fricay? I'm sure there are many variables I'm not taking into account---just one librarian's two cents worth. Thank you for giving us a chance to give our opinion.
• Sam Schuman
  Given the character of some of the replies, let me get in an additional word, which is, I would NOT support:
  1. Cutting the length of the term in order to accomodate a break. We have already lost some minutes of instructional time in the conversion process, and it would be instructionally inappropriate to cut two days from the semester.
  2. Running later with the term. Already, some years we are scheduled to have finals only a couple of days before Christmas. It would be a bad idea to extend to the 24th or all the way through the 23rd. Very bad.
  3. Somehow extending the semester - as in the past - beyond Christmas break. Shudder. That is what we had at Grinnell in my salad days, epochs ago, and it was hideous.
  Again, take a look at the faculty contract: it specifies that we are paying people for their services - I presume on campus - beginning August 14, 2000. I do not feel guilty asking folks to actually show up a week or so after their formal "start" date. Sam
• Susan Bernardin
  Hi Peh, You know, Princeton had a week-long mid-semester break the last week of October (and we also started later--around Sept. 8th). Why do we need those two extra days? Susan
• Chris Cole
  Peh-- I think this is incomplete, and needs an explanation of why starting two days earlier would be necessary. Moreover, this should be considered in the larger context of scheduling repairs, such as fixing the folly of the last week which has classes going right into final exams. Only the interim-chancellor-dean-vice president for academic affairs made the "ruling" that there had to be exactly the same number of days in the fall and spring terms: this is _not_ university policy, nor do the other campuses do this. I am not against the proposal, but think this approach is hasty. -Chris
• Eric Klinger
  Peh, I register below my support for a fall break, but I emphatically do not support starting two days earlier. If we institute the break, we should run two days longer in December. I don't much like that, either, but fall semester does get awfully long with just the Thanksgiving break. Yes, I would support a fall break for UMM. Eric
• Fred Peterson
  Peh,
  I cast a vote for a two-day holiday in October.
  I was a member of the University Senate in the mid-sixties when the Minneapolis campus expanded to include east and west bank campuses. The period between classes was increased from 10 to 15 minutes to allow adequate time to cross the larger campus. A conscientious faculty member of the Senate calculated that many minutes were lost from the classroom day because of this change and asked the adminstration to solve the problem of missing minutes multiplied by days in a quarter.
  The adminstration's solution to the problem was to eliminate holidays formerly enjoyed by all University campuses - Lincoln's birthday, Washington's birthday, Columbus Day, and Veteran's (Armistice) Day.
  We go to and fro between classes in ten minutes on the Morris Campus. We could, therefore, argue for a four day break instead of two. We will not loose any precious time. The University seemed to excell with more holidays than it presently enjoys. I vote for a return to a slower, more sane schedule.
  Fred Peterson
  P.S. We frequently cite ancient Greece as a model of values and behavior. In the golden age of Athens, citizens of that fair place enjoyed 120 holidays out of the 360 that made the year. Aristotle said they were welcome relief from the tedium of everyday duties.
• David Craig
  Yes, I would support a fall break for UMM.However, I STRONGLY question the assumption that taking a short Fall break automatically necessitates beginning the term two days earlier. I see no reason to assume that the undergraduate experience would be noticeably impacted by simply shortening the term.
• Judy Kuechle
  Hi Peh: Thanks for helping us understand some of the issues around length of semesters. I don't see that 2 days would make that much of a difference in the lives of students or faculty. If we are going to drop days of classes, I wouldn't want them dropped on a Mon/Tues or Thurs/Fri, because then students would feel compelled to travel some distance and they would be more tired than ever. I would want them to have time in the middle of a week, so they could stay at UMM and catch up on sleep and coursework.
  If we are going to drop instruction on 2 days, I would still want the days to be of some academic focus. The days could be times to meet with advisors, catch up on papers, devote a day to some research aspect, a field trip to some special event, etc.
  So, this is a long way of saying "no" I'm not in favor of taking 2 non-academic days and starting the year earlier in August. Judy Kuechle
• Wilbert Ahern
  I voted yes but appreciate the concerns of Seun-Ho Joo and Greg Thorson. Why not reduce spring semester by two days as well? That way we would gain the break for the fall and retain the same length of both semesters. We would also have more than 70 instructional days and, indeed, would have the same number, I believe, as does the TC campus in its shorter semester [yes, folks, some campuses have unequal length semesters]. I thnk that some breathing room in the middle of each semester makes sense. It should be placed at the mid-way point so that half-semester classes do not straddle it.
  Ruth Thielke's response:
  • We don't have discretionary decision making power over the length of our semesters. That is done at the all-university level. The semester length was set at 74 days. The Twin Cities campus was under severe constraints in the fall. The parking lot on the St. Paul campus is in use by the State Fair until after Labor Day. There are 2 national holidays in the fall semester: Labor Day, and Thanksgiving with the floating holiday the Friday after Thanksgiving. Their campus had a study day with exams scheduled Dec 17-23. They had good cause for a 70 day fall semester. However, there are not those constraints for any of our campuses in the spring semester. It will be 74 days of instruction. The Morris campus did not have the worry of our parking lot being in use through Labor Day, and therefore, we were able to give our students their full 74 instructional days in the fall. The students are now asking for a fall break. That does not bring us to the logical conclusion that we must shorten spring semester.
• James Flaten
  It appears to me that the date-of-merit is not so much August 28 or 24 (when classes begin) but rather August 14 (an educated guess) when faculty are required to be back on campus and meetings begin. I suggest that we DO start classes 2 days earlier, on Thursday August 24th, but DO NOT change the date faculty need to return. This just means we need to be a bit more efficient with our faculty meeting days. I think this can be done, with the possible exception of new-faculty orientation.
  I like Bert's idea about placing the break so that it lies between half-semester classes, though none of our other breaks do that so I'm sure we will survive if there are valid reasons for different dates. I only hope that the faculty don't fall into the trap (as some of us have with respect to Thanksgiving break) of letting students get away with extending their break by not coming to class on the day(s) before the break begins. Since this propsed break doesn't correspond to any specific holiday, I hope we can hold the line on this issue. Perhaps a Monday-Tuesday break (October 16-17, 2000 would be Bert's dates) would work well in this regard.
  I do not support the proposal that we should reduce the number of class days, regardless of what is done in the Twin Cities. We have 74 instructional days in each semester next year, if I counted correctly, which is already slightly less than 15 weeks.
  I do support Fall break
• James Olson
  I have decided to give a mid-term exam in my courses and have the final cover a VERY minimal amount of that first half stuff. I found that writing a final exam that covered an entire semester was quite difficult. JMO
• Margaret Kuchenreuther
  Hi Peh- Happy New Year!
  My vote on the fall break issue is:
  No, I would be against a fall break for UMM -- UNLESS it can be accomplished without an earlier start date. Our new calendar will already make it difficult enough for me to finish my field work before school starts. Margaret
• Loreen Olson
  I am STRONGLY in favor of a fall break - the students, faculty, and staff all NEED one and other institutions have done this (e.g., University of Nebraska, Lincoln where I did my Ph.D. work). I talked with my UMM students about this during fall semester and they said they would be in favor of starting a few days earlier if it meant getting a break mid-term. I think it is something we need to seriously consider.
• Gordon McIntosh
  I do NOT care. But I think Veteran's Day should be a celebrated holiday at UMM and by the University of Minnesota.
• Vincente Cabrera
  My vote on day fall break is NO. I agree with Thorson. Vicente Cabrera

Comments on this page and any of my other pages may be sent to semqna@morris.umn.edu

This web page belongs to:

Peh H. Ng,
Assistant Academic Dean (Semester Conversion) & Associate Professor of Mathematics
Division of Science and Mathematics
University of Minnesota - Morris
Morris, MN 56267
URL is http://cda.morris.umn.edu/~semqna/fall.html
email: semqna@morris.umn.edu
last modified date is January 18, 2000.