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<p>Is accommodating a religious holiday respecting the establishment of a religion, or merely minimizing the impediments of the free exercise thereof?</p>
<p>Veterans Day may always be 11/11, but the UAW negotiates to “move” it to 11/15- the first day of deer hunting gun season in Michigan. It may make no sense to auto workers in other states- but that’s how it is anyway.</p>
<p>Then there is Darwin Day:</p>
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<p>Although I think the most logical way to celebrate it would be to try to produce more offspring.</p>
<p>The decision to make an accommodation has to do with numbers. If one institution is located in an area where operations are likely to be disrupted by having too many people “gone” for religious reasons, then an accommodation is acceptable and certainly legal.</p>
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<p>Sure, you could say that. Of course, most religion can be “exercised” anywhere. I get that families that observe religious traditions want to be together for their most important holidays. But I also think individuals bear some responsibility for making choices that work for their religious preferences. For example, an observant Jew might not want to attend college in California if the family’s expectation is that he return home to the East Coast each year for the HHDs, and doing this is infeasible. Alternatively, most campuses have services and events for students who want to observe religious occasions but can’t travel home. Why is that not enough? Again, it’s all about priorities and everyone has to decide what theirs are.</p>
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<p>I don’t think I was very clear in what I was trying to say. I don’t think it is a national “religious” holiday (in fact, I think much of the religious meaning has been lost). It is celebrated by agnostics and aetheists, unlike other religious holidays.</p>
<p>I assure you, there are plenty of Jewish atheists and agnostics celebrating the High Holy Days.</p>
<p>And Sally, it isn’t just a matter of wanting to be home with one’s family. First of all, for an observant Jew, there are a number of restrictions on holidays that would indeed interfere with one’s ability to attend class. Even if you are willing to drive, write, etc, however, services on those days are long, often starting at 9 or earlier and ending well past noon.</p>
<p>When a school, an area, a community, whatever gets a certain core number of people who observe certain holidays and will not be in school, or have other needs, it makes sense to accommodate them. There is a school district in this area that provides school bus transportation directly to a Roman Catholic church in the are because so many kids go from school to CCD there. Likewise, as school might have a lot of kids going to certain after school programs or day cares and find that providing some sort of link with the such is beneficial to many. </p>
<p>At schools where a lot of students, employees, teachers are going to take off a certain day, it makes sense to make it a day off.</p>
<p>S1’s SUNY school decided two years ago they would no longer close for any religious holiday, or for most holidays for that matter. He’s not off for Columbus Day or Veteran’s Day or President’s Day and so on. Considering the school’s diverse student body, they probably realized they couldn’t afford to accommodate everyone without offending someone. S2 goes to a Catholic school, so no conflict there, plus he’s off for Columbus Day, President’s Day, etc.</p>
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<p>Sally, this isn’t the problem. On Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, people who observe the holiday are at services for most of the day. This isn’t just a matter of orthodox Jews–it’s true for any Jew who observes the holiday. Just like church attendance jumps for Christmas and Easter, same deal for the high holy days. </p>
<p>Most college students don’t go home for RH and YK, but they ARE going to services. That’s the problem when the holidays fall during the school term. The easy fix–applicable to other religions as well (and to other Jewish holidays as well, for those who are more observant) is to either not schedule tests and due dates on those holidays, or to have students notify professors as early as possible that this is a conflict so that they can make other arrangements. </p>
<p>The issue when UC move-in day conflicts with RH or YK is that it DOES impact the entire family. Again, it’s not because the family wants to be together, it’s because the family is at services. There are always some folks who need to move in late for one reason or another. That’s usually not an issue. When you’ve got a good 10% of your freshman class requesting late move-in, different story.</p>
<p>The holiday where more Jewish families would like to have their kids home is Passover, which may or may not coincide with spring break. For D1 it hasn’t. I’m not happy about it, I wish the school would schedule break to make it possible, but I understand that it’s not to be.</p>
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<p>I agree–this is a good fix and similar to what wis75 said was the practice at UW-Madison.</p>
<p>As for the move-in dates, I get what you are saying but I still think there is choice involved. Maybe not everyone gets to attend the RH or YK services. Or the student moves in alone (which international students, and others who live far away or who don’t have parents available to help, do all the time). Again, it’s all about priorities.</p>
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<p>Depending on the location, this may be another cost-free accommodation, if a school bus route was already in the neighborhood of the church. Just have one of the stops on the school bus route be near the church.</p>
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<p>But that’s not what would happen–it’s not what DID happen when UCLA move-in coincided with the HHDs a number of years ago. Folks simply said they couldn’t move in on that day, and requested late move-in. </p>
<p>Yes, there is a choice involved. The UCs can make a choice. They can choose to schedule move-in with this conflict, thus guaranteeing that their residential hall staff is going to have to accommodate many, many, many late move-ins. Or they can choose to schedule their move-in to avoid the conflict. They tried choice one a few years back. I’m guessing that’s why they’re now going with choice two.</p>
<p>So basically, the families are forcing the university to accommodate their personal choice, which is "HHD services come before moving the kid into college. I can see why the university acceded to their demands but I think ultimately doing this could backfire when followers of other religions insist on accommodations of their own.</p>
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Yep. This year was especially bad. </p>
<p>I won’t comment on the wisdom of the move, but I’m rather unhappy with how it’ll affect me personally. The last exam next year won’t be until December 19. For those of us making a living as TAs, that means several days of frantically grading before flying home…maybe a day or two before Christmas. That should be fun. Then only about 1 1/2 weeks at home? Not a lot considering how expensive flights have gotten. On top of that, the major conference in my field is in the first week of January, which means I actually get a little under a week. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>If they want to avoid move-in falling on a religious holiday, why not start a week later in January as well? Or take the week out of summer break instead by starting fall quarter early? Switching to the semester system would be even better, of course…but I discussed that on another thread.</p>
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Courtesy of Hillel.org, the Jewish undergrad figures:</p>
<p>UCSC: 2600 / 14888 (17.5%)
UCSB: 2750 / 20,000 (13.8%)<br>
UCB: 2500 / 25,000 (10%)
UCD: 2500 / 25,000 (10%)
UCLA: 2600 / 30,000 (8.67%)
UCSD: 1800 / 22,000 (8.18%)
UCR: 800 / 17,200 (4.65%)
UCI: 800 / 20,000 (4%)
UCM: No info available</p>
<p>Total undergrad Jewish population: 16,350 / 174,088 (9.39%)</p>
<p>Including grad students…</p>
<p>UCSC: 2850 / 16322 (17.5%)
UCSB: 3200 / 23,000 (13.9%)
UCD: 3550 / 32,500 (10.9%)
UCB: 3000 / 35,000 (8.57%)
UCSD: 2300 / 27,500 (8.36%)
UCLA: 3600 / 45,000 (8%)
UCI: 1000 / 27,000 (3.70%)
UCM: No info available
UCR: No info available
UCSF: No info available</p>
<p>Total: 19,500 / 206,322 (9.45%)</p>
<p>PG, yes, I believe NU is 20% Jewish or more. However, I doubt that entire percentage attends services on HHDs.</p>
<p>To be clear, sally is responding to a post that I deleted - in which I referenced that NU has done this for years (scheduled move-in around High Holidays) given the size of the Jewish population there (though probably not that much different from most selective schools).</p>
<p>Warblersrule - my D on a semester system has had finals up to / including December 20; it never struck me as a big deal.</p>
<p>Sorry, PG–didn’t see that you had deleted a post.</p>
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<p>The HHDs on one end versus having one year where students have a two week winter break instead of three weeks? </p>
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<p>As I said upthread, there’s a large Muslim percentage at UC Irvine. I don’t know offhand of any Islamic religious holiday which requires a full day spent at prayer, but if there is one and it was going to take place near move-in day then yes, I think that UC would be wise to accommodate that. The Islamic calendar is also lunar but unlike the Jewish calendar doesn’t stay fixed with the seasons, so their holidays drift all over the place.</p>
<p>As I said before, D1 doesn’t come home for Passover because Spring Break doesn’t always overlap with the holiday. That’s because Spring Break generally is driven by Easter Sunday. In other words, the university has “acceded to their demands”, with “their” in this case being the Christian community. I suppose I could say that “families are forcing the university to accommodate their personal choice”, but I’d rather just try and work schedules out in an imperfect way. Everyone is inconvenienced some of the time. Sometimes a minority is inconvenienced. Sometimes the majority is. We all complain and bumble on together. If that’s the price we pay to have diversity, so be it.</p>
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<p>Remove UCB from the calculation because they aren’t affected, their semester begins in August. The accommodation is only being made to delay move-in day for dorm residents- so divide the total by the number of kids in dorms, maybe 50%? That leaves less than 5% of the UC undergrads who may benefit from the new schedule- assuming they are religiously observant. The kids in apartments and other housing can just arrive to campus later, since classes don’t begin until the Thursday of move-in week.</p>