CSA hopes to keep students informed
The discussion of a fall reading week continues this month, as the issue will be considered at the Nov. 27 senate meeting. The University of Guelph currently has the shortest fall study break in the province, with only one day of cancelled classes on the Tuesday following the Thanksgiving long weekend.
The renewed discussion of the fall break comes at a time when universities are scrambling to address mental health issues on campus. Four U of G students took their own lives in the 2016-2017 school year.“We owe it to students to show that we are taking concrete action to improve mental health on campus,” said Becca Cheskes, CSA vice president academic. “Especially in the wake of all the shit of last year. This is a concrete thing that could happen.”There is some debate as to how effective a fall reading week would be in improving student mental health. When the Mental Health Advisory Committee put forward the proposed four-day break, they refrained from endorsing it, saying that no empirical evidence exists to prove that an extended break would work.
U of G registrar, Ray Darling, who previously oversaw the extension of fall breaks at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo, acknowledged that point in an email to The Ontarion. “I believe that such an important decision should be evidence based, so it is important to consider whatever evidence is available,” said Darling. The evidence supporting an extended break is mostly qualitative. For instance, a study at Brock University, which has a full four-day break, found that 91 per cent of Brock students felt the extended break helped them deal with their school stress. “The issue is whether there is enough evidence out there to convince people to support expanding the fall break,” said Darling, “[or,] alternatively, given the lack of evidence, would people be comfortable trying a longer break on a pilot basis, which is what many other schools have done.”
Cheskes and the CSA collaborated with administrators to poll students on the issue. The Office of Students Affairs distributed a survey to students in an email in early November. Now, Cheskes thinks that the survey didn’t give students the full picture.
“The questions in the survey didn’t really capture the thing being proposed in a clear way for students who just didn’t have the context to begin with,” said Cheskes.
The survey listed the options for offsetting the time lost by cutting four days of classes, including holding Sunday exams, starting classes earlier, and trimming the winter break. To busy students who didn’t read the explanatory document attached to the email, those options would be incomprehensible, said Cheskes.
Both Darling and Cheskes noted that while some students have expressed concern about a fall reading week cutting into the winter break, the proposed options involving Sunday exams would allow for the winter break to remain unaltered. “You can have both, it’s not one or the other,” said Cheskes. The CSA touched on the fall break at their Nov. 15 town hall meeting.
The University of Guelph Faculty Association (UGFA) opposes running exams on Sundays. “It would effectively mean that faculty could be carrying out teaching duties seven days a week,” said UGFA president, Bill Cormack, in an email. “While students (and many of their professors) may welcome a full week break in the fall term, they may not be so happy with starting earlier or ending later,” said Cormack.
Following the Nov. 27 senate discussion, a motion to extend the break may be put forward as early as February.
Photo by Alora Griffiths/The Ontarion
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