in an effort to mitigate any further on-campus outbreaks of Covid. So, in addition to moving classes completely online post Thanksgiving break, canceling Spring Break is another nail in the coffin of an already diminished college experience
This list is sure to grow in the coming weeks & months :
It’s the same concept as cancelling all the Fall breaks - keep kids on campus to prevent spread in their home communities, vacation destinations, and back on campus. IMO, it’s a smart move.
I think it’s a little different. As far as I am aware, kids will not return to campus after Thanksgiving, but will stay home until the start of the new semester / quarter My understanding re Spring Break, is it will be cancelled ie classes will be in session January all the way through to whenever summer break starts.
I think it’s more the equivalent of cancelling Fall Break and going straight through from mid August to Thanksgiving.
Purdue also pushed back the start of spring semester so it doesn’t start until after MLK this year. They also added 3 reading days throughout the semester, something they didn’t do this Fall.
It is a long stretch but nearly the same amount of time, at least at Purdue, as the Fall. I believe Spring semester is just 2 weeks longer.
Several schools in NY are eliminating spring break, too. D20’s LAC is doing a modified J-term type thing to allow students who missed labs or exams from the fall because of quarantine or illness to make them up. They are delaying the start of Spring semester to accommodate the make-up time and account for the lack of break week.
It might be a bit different for some schools that are still doing online after Thanksgiving, but some are just plowing through in the fall too, and will be done completely by Thanksgiving, after having slogged through an entire sememster without a single day off.
Personally that sounds about as bad as a regular schedule and doing it on Zoom. Don’t get me wrong, I get why they are doing it and I agree that it is probably the least bad solution. But for me that feels like a really long time to go without a break. I think my kids probably feel the same way.
Least bad. Unfortunately that standard is how we have to make decisions in 2020.
The CT State University system, like many, will have classes end at Thanksgiving with exams done online in December. They originally were going to return to classes early January, but have rolled that out to something like the 24th. Because of the added week off in January, they are omitting the March vacation.
School will still end in May.
They want the instructional time to not change, thus omitting that March break and a later start in January.
IIRC, these schools do have a long weekend around Easter.
My daughter’s school caldendar for the spring isn’t even out yet (normally would be in May). However they have said that instead of going back on Martin Luther King weekend they are not returning until Feb. There is rumor of a January intersession class online as well as no spring break. We do leave Thanksgiving then finals are online staring Monday. We predict more finals will be projects/papers then exams.
Duke announced no spring break during the summer. They started a week earlier than normal for fall and cancelled all breaks to be done at Thanksgiving - no remote finals - done. They will do the same for spring.
Notre Dame announced today that they are moving the start of the spring semester two weeks later to Feb 3 – making up for that by not only cancelling spring break but also pushing graduation back a week. Students will finish this semester on Nov 20, so during the extra long winter break ND will be offering on-line courses, internships, extra career center programs, etc.
Yale is saying they will announce spring schedule in November. I hope they decide earlier, it would help with travel decisions for Thanksgiving. If they delay long enough, D might opt to drive home which she usually only does in summer.
Add Hamilton College. Spring semester will start on Feb. 1st (usually starts mid January), two week spring break in March is cancelled, so they will plow through until May 11th.
Neither of the schools my kids went to had fall breaks. One had a 4 day weekend for Columbus day, but the other went from Aug to Dec with only a 4 day break for Thanksgiving.
They did have a spring break for a week, but one daughter played a spring sport and could never ‘go away’ for spring break (she lived at the beach, so no big deal).
I don’t think it is a big deal to just plow through.
Our regional state school, Murray State University, has announced that they are pushing back the spring start date and cancelling spring break. Not only will it reduce COVID risk with students less likely to go mix germs in the big petri dish that is Florida, but it should also save them on utilities since they’ll have students on campus in mid-March and not the original planned week in January. Of course, there’s no guarantee on that with our crazy climate these days.
Kansas state also pushed back the start of the spring semester until Jan 25 due to cancellation of Spring Break. Semester finals May 10 - 14. Students don’t like it but agree right thing to do.
The way it works for Michigan my son will have from something like December 18-January-19,off… That’s so much more time that they ever had off in 4 years. Not sure what he is going to do. It would be nice to be able to somewhere warm but that might be unrealistic this year