YOOHYUN PARK/MULTIMEDIA COORDINATOR
Viewing reading week strictly as a break or as solely a time for revision can be harmful for students' wellbeing
For Canadian university students, reading week is likely the most anticipated week of the semester. It is standard for most universities to give their students a week off classes and other academic engagements. For the well-being of their students, many universities promote this break as a time to recharge, catch up on missed work or even get ahead in classes.
This messaging helps to increase the appeal of this weeklong recess. However, some students have a different take on reading week. Come reading week, students may be so burnt out from the first half of the semester, from assignment after assignment, midterm after midterm, they view reading week as a complete break. They use this time to fully relax and refreshen. As I have done this every reading week I have experienced, I would also argue there are many downsides to this approach.
For some people, this approach can contribute to a sense of overwhelming guilt for not working and simply taking time to relax instead. This kind of guilt is often driven by anxiety, particularly what is known as "time anxiety.” Tim anxiety refers to the feeling of unease created by time passing and believing that it is too late to accomplish certain things.
Time does not halt while we may take a step back from our studies during the week. In fact, it goes by faster if anything. So it's important to be mindful of the extent to your relaxation as readings will continue to pile up and you will once again fall back into the perpetual cycle of burnout.
Time does not halt while we may take a step back from our studies during the week. In fact, it goes by faster if anything. So be mindful of the extent to your relaxation as readings will continue to pile up and you will once again fall back into the perpetual cycle of burnout.
Additionally, for several students, the majority of their midterms fall after the break. With no classes to attend, they may choose to cram for the back-to-back midterms that wait for them the next week. However, this leaves little room to truly recharge and can lead to students feeling even more stressed than they might during their normal schedule.
As humans, it can be hard for us to find a balance at times. In the short run, we find it much easier to commit to one or another extreme, but this can result in long-term dissatisfaction and, in this case in particular, further burnout. Students must force themselves to find a balance during this period as that is the only way they might genuinely be able to take the opportunity for relaxation that reading week is offers, all while remaining successful in our studies.
Students must force themselves to find a balance during this period as that is the only way they might genuinely be able to take the opportunity for relaxation that reading week is offers, all while remaining successful in our studies.
To start developing balance, students could set up a short to do list for yourself every day and resist the urge to pile on more tasks than you can handle. I find that at times I overestimate how much I can get done on a day free of classes. But in reality, I easily get distracted from the tasks at hand and long to do something more relaxing, especially since I have a free day.
Reading week can set students up for the gruelling two months that follow it, but it is also capable for setting students up for success for the rest of the semester. If we just try to find a school-relaxation balance during the break, we would be able to not only enjoy the break itself, but achieve much more throughout the remaining part of the semester.
C/O Yoohyun Park
The importance of self-care and managing school and other stressors
By: Anna Samson, Contributor
About halfway through every semester, Canadian postsecondary students get one week off from school. Known as a mid-term recess, or reading week, this week is meant for students to catch up on class material and assignments. It is also used as a break so that students can take some time to rest before entering the homestretch of the semester.
This year, at McMaster University, reading week for the fall 2021 semester ran from Oct. 11 to 17.
The break is a chance for many students to spend time with family and friends. Like most fall semester reading weeks, this year’s reading week aligned with Thanksgiving weekend. In the winter semester, it aligns with Family Day. Both holidays offer good opportunities for students to reconnect with their loved ones.
Aside from seeing friends and family, students can use the break as a chance to do some self-care that they may have slacked on in lieu of schoolwork. This can include getting more sleep, taking long baths, spending time in nature, journaling, doing hobbies or just going out and having fun.
Yuka Abe, a fourth-year kinesiology student, spent her break reconnecting with family and friends. She also got some rest and devoted time to leisure reading.
“I did read more, I think, which I haven’t done in a while. So, that was pretty nice, just reading for fun and not like school readings,” said Abe.
Since fall of 2019, students have had reading weeks that were filled with health anxiety and uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fall of 2021 is the first reading week since the pandemic started where students are not stuck at home. As places open back up and people get fully vaccinated, students now have more options regarding how they choose to spend their reading week.
Zeinab Khawaja, a Health Promoter at the Student Wellness Centre at McMaster, highlights the importance of adequate sleep and rest and not being too hard on yourself throughout the school year. Her major piece of advice for students about managing stress is two-fold.
“One: trusting in your ability to handle things and get the supports that you need, because they exist at McMaster and within your social circles. Two: prioritizing rest. Say ‘this is my cut-off time and I’m gonna do as much as I can by then and then I’m gonna rest guilt-free or go to bed’,”
Zeinab Khawaja
The Student Wellness Centre has services available to students year-round. These include counseling and therapy sessions, both individually or by group, medical care and health promotion and wellness resources. Most services are covered under the McMaster Student Union Health Plan.
As this week off from school falls around the middle of the semester, students are often preoccupied with studying for midterms. Some midterms are due right before reading week, which gives students some time to recharge and recuperate afterward. Other midterms may fall after reading week, which provides students with more uninterrupted time to prepare and revise.
However, although reading week is meant to relieve stress for students, trying to balance productivity and finding time to rest can also induce greater stress for some.
With one midterm before reading week and two more during the first week back from the break, Abe was one student who felt that the break did not offer enough time for relaxing.
“I don’t think I was able to relax as much as I could’ve, or wanted to, during the break because I was just thinking about the midterms or like studying for them,” said Abe.
Other students have also expressed similar sentiments in previous years.
To help organize and manage schoolwork, students can use planners to make note of due dates. Scheduling programs and apps are also great ways for students to make realistic schedules for all the tasks they have to juggle. Most importantly, making time for self-care, including exercise and relaxation, can help reduce stress.
Khawaja emphasizes the need for students to be kind to themselves.
“Forgiv[e] yourself for not completing every single thing you wanted to do and not doing everything at 110%. We’re humans, we can’t constantly be functioning at “100%” and our best looks different every single day,” said Khawaja.
Through self-kindness, rest and realistic planning, students can achieve a healthy balance between their lives and their workload. It is important that students find ways to use the reading week to enrich their minds and bodies and not feel overwhelmed by school.
C/O Emily Underworld, Unsplash
Do 24 hours truly suffice for such a complex topic?
On Oct. 10, 1992, Global Mental Health Day was introduced to the world. The day aims to bring attention to mental health and educate the public. Corporations, groups and the general public try their best to open as many discussions about mental health as they can.
However, this day dedicated to the conversation that pertains to mental health is a widely debated topic. Amelia J. Joseph, one of McMaster University’s associate professors in the School of Social Work, tweeted about this day. Joseph questioned whether or not a single day in itself can truly make the difference it hopes to achieve.
Zeinab Khawaja, a health promotor at the McMaster Student Wellness Centre, described how the SWC views Mental Health Day and how it ties into their work.
“I think any opportunity that highlights mental health [is] a good thing to have, but for [SWC], it is a year-round thing where we are trying to educate people around different mental health and well-being topics . . . It is something we are focusing on all the time, so Mental Health Day is just one extra day where, maybe, more people are talking about it,” explained Khawaja.
Khawaja spoke about how extending conversations pertaining to mental health beyond one day can come from the little things.
“For me, it is small things, like being honest when someone asks you how you are doing. Checking in on your friends, being vulnerable and taking risks. Sometimes it is sharing what you are struggling with instead of pretending you are not or that you shouldn’t be. I think the more people who take that little bit of a risk to acknowledge what’s going on with themselves, the less stigmatized it gets,” said Khawaja.
Though the SWC offers opportunities for communication, many students often find that when they do try to reach out they are left more confused than when they had started.
Anisah Ali, a second-year health and society student with a mental health specialization, spoke about their own experiences with mental health.
“As I’ve grown older, Mental Health Day is still important in terms of destigmatizing mental health in general, but I don’t think it creates sufficient change for those that do experience mental health issues,” said Ali.
Ali is one student that has experience using SWC resources.
“I went to them for help and they were nice in terms of hearing me out which helps because someone was there to listen. They would provide me tips on anxiety, for example, but it wasn’t sufficient enough in terms of fundamental changes to handle these things better in your life,” explained Ali.
Lucas Mei, a second-year linguistics student, also accessed SWC’s counselling service. When Mei called the SWC seeking immediate help, the SWC presented him with times to speak with a counsellor that were weeks or months away. Mei explained that the experience was frustrating so he ended up not booking an appointment at all.
“I ended up hanging up the phone because that was ridiculous,” said Mei.
Mei added that there was no follow-up from anyone in SWC after the phone call. Though he was disappointed with the way it was all handled, he was aware it was because of the shortage of counsellors for this particular service.
“They could look for more openings. They are a prestigious university in our country. I feel like if they wanted counsellors and if they actively were searching for improvements in their mental health department, then I feel like they could. But to them, it just isn’t a priority,”
Lucas mei
Abrar Khan, a second-year in electrical engineering, also had difficulty finding mental health resources while studying from out of the country. For Khan, it wasn’t clear where he could access resources or who he was supposed to contact.
Unfortunately, Khan said that he did not end up receiving the help he needed. Khan believes resources like these should be attached to more student familiar sites such as Mosaic.
Brenda and Cinthiya, co-presidents of MSU COPE, a student mental health initiative, talked about how vital it is to keep the conversation going beyond just a single day.
“We all need time to take a step back and look at where we are, so [Mental Health Day] gives a specific day to tune into ourselves. The landscape is constantly changing and it’s a reminder of where we are and what we have to do to get to where we want to be,” said Brenda.
“It is important to acknowledge that just because it’s Mental Health Day doesn’t mean it is the only time to acknowledge mental health,” explained Cinthiya.
Anika Anand, Director of MSU’s Student Health Education Center, also shared similar sentiments in terms of Mental Health Day and its effectiveness. She added that institutions, like McMaster, can foster a more open environment.
“Bell is notorious for having this yearly ‘Let’s talk day’ but their working conditions are also notorious for being extremely toxic and unhealthy for their workers. So I look at, not necessarily McMaster, but the McMaster Student Union and I look at the way they are treating their part-time managers, who are running each of these student-run clubs. The work environment is completely toxic and I think that if you’re going to talk about mental health on Mental Health Day, you have an inherent responsibility to start working actively to make your organizations have an environment in which that is even possible,” explained Anand.
The discussion of academics and the culture it breeds came into the discussion as well.
“I think that professors need access to adequate training, not necessarily to treat mental health problems because they are not health care professionals or crisis responders, but they are people who are trusted, or at least they are supposed to be,” said Anand.
Anand added that there is a disconnect between the accommodations provided by the Student Accessibility Services and how different professors handle students requesting accommodations.
“It needs to be more connected. So that we build a sense of community because, as we all know, community connections lead to better mental wellness,” explained Anand.
Mental health is a topic that affects each and every single person differently. Though a day like this may be vital to opening the door to deeper conversations, continuing them everyday is what can truly create the difference.
Students shouldn’t feel the need to “hold on” until reading week in order to be okay
Fall reading week has come and gone this year and I don’t know about you, but it felt like a blur.
Many Canadian universities, including McMaster University, have introduced a fall reading week in response to increased stress and mental illnesses in post-secondary students. Although introducing a week-long break from classes seems ideal in alleviating school-related stress, a 2018 study conducted at McMaster found that supporting students’ mental health is a bit more complicated than that. The study, which was conducted in 2015 when the fall break was introduced, found that although students had fewer stressors after reading week, they felt higher levels of stress overall.
Although introducing a week-long break from classes seems ideal in alleviating school-related stress, a 2018 study conducted at McMaster found that supporting students’ mental health is a bit more complicated than that.
Many students commented that because of the added break, a shortened semester resulted in them having an increased number of midterms and assignments that occurred right after the break. So even though there was a break from classes, reading week is often spent studying or worrying about upcoming assessments.
Although this study was conducted five years ago, much of the data is still relevant. Since first-year, I’ve been fortunate enough to have a full reading week for the fall and winter semesters, but each year I’ve felt the need to catch up on work that was either overdue or prepare for a hectic week of assignments after the break. Reading week is simply not enough to support students’ wellbeing — and it is especially not enough if instructors just condense the work we have to do to “make up” for lost time during the break.
The university has a lot of work to do in order to give us an actual, restful break that helps improve our mental health. Second-year hit me hardest in terms of stress and as a result, I deferred two fall exams. As a result, I had to write two exams during the winter reading week. This meant that on top of taking my full course load, I had to prepare for two final exams right in the middle of the semester when many of my winter courses also had midterms or major assignments' deadlines coming up. While these week-long breaks are supposed to be for our mental health, the winter break exacerbated my stress that year.
This past reading week seemed even less restful, which was likely due to online classes and the pandemic. As our whole semester has been spent at home, spending another week — well, at home — didn’t really offer me with that mental pause in work and assignments. Yes, I didn’t have any synchronous classes to attend, but due to part of my course load being asynchronous, I already had fewer classes that I needed to attend synchronously this semester.
What I did have this reading week was a lot of work to catch up on or prepare for next week. This tends to be the norm for students every year, but with the anxieties surrounding COVID-19, being isolated from your friends and family and not being able to go out many places, this week was a lot more exhausting for me. Since in-person social interaction was limited and I was at home for the entirety of the week, every day I felt like I needed to do work and be productive.
I had a paper that was due right before reading week and four assignments due the week after — so of course, right after I finished my paper, I wanted to start working on the assignments so that their deadlines didn’t loom on the horizon.
Student mental health is more than just having a mid-semester break from classes and assignments. Many students like myself find that we just need to hold on until reading week; to simply finish our work and that as long as we don’t burn out until then, we will be okay. But once it’s reading week, we are allowed a moment to breathe before we must pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off again and continue working until we finish our exams — the light at the end of the tunnel. Then this cycle continues for the winter semester until summer break — unless you have spring or summer courses or work a job, of course. In that case, there are even fewer breaks that allow you to take a breather and actually, truly relax.
Student mental health is more than just having a mid-semester break from classes and assignments.
Giving us a reading week is a band-aid solution to a much larger problem. Students shouldn’t feel the need to “push through” to reading week and then “push through” to the end of exams.
If McMaster wanted to ensure students had a restful break, fall exams wouldn’t be deferred to a break meant for our mental health. If McMaster wanted to ensure students had a restful break, we shouldn’t be overloaded with midterms, assignments and papers right before or after reading week.
I don’t have all the answers or solutions on how to improve student mental health. But what I do know is that if we want to truly support students, we need to do more than just providing two reading weeks.
With midterms either resuming or beginning for most students and final exams lingering around the corner, scheduling your time is becoming more of a challenge.
As reading week has now come to an end and the regret of not being as productive as your professors expected you to be when they assigned their due dates has set in, it would be nice to have a more convenient way to organize your workload.
An exam schedule for midterm exams, like the one that is currently available on Mosaic for finals, could help reduce the stress that already exists for students while they try to prioritize their to-do lists.
It would also help students plan ahead of time for the reading week and allocate their time according to the importance of assignment weights.
Presently, students rely on course syllabi on Avenue to Learn for midterm exam dates. However, this is not always productive, as sometimes instructors do not decide the midterm date in advance for certain courses and students are forced to readjust their schedules as a result.
This results in either lack of proper preparation for exams or student having to pull all-nighters to complete work from other courses with less effort than they would have if they had the time to finish assignments wholeheartedly.
With midterms either resuming or beginning for most students and final exams lingering around the corner, scheduling your time is becoming more of a challenge.
However, a posted exam schedule would not only help students, but also instructors to mentally prepare for their schedule and organize their time accordingly.
This means that students would not only be able to better organize their to-do lists, but also their leisure time.
As reading week proves every time it comes around, students need a breather whether we anticipate it or not. Though we plan to complete assignments, catch up on readings and study for upcoming exams every reading week, it is usually the case that we don’t get to doing so until the weekend before the break is over anyway.
With busy schedules, students are sometimes too busy to fit in time for relaxation and we may find ourselves procrastinating in times we really shouldn’t be.
This may be the product of lack of organization or merely poor coordination between professors in planning due dates, which is a conspiracy that students joke about often.
If there was a way to make planning easier and more productive between instructors and students, this might be a good start.
In addition to making orgaization and time management more manageable, having a midterm exam schedule available at the beginning of the semester on Mosaic would also allow for international student and commuters to better plan for trips to visit home without worrying about the possibility of missing something in their time away from school.
An exam schedule for midterms on Mosaic would help increase organization, productivity and time management for students, especially around times that are meant for a compromise between studying and relaxing such as reading week.
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By: Saad Ejaz and Salman Surangiwala
This year marked McMaster’s second fall reading week since its inauguration in January 2015 for the 2015-2016 academic year. The break provides students with a full week recess mid-way through the semester with the goal of improving academic performance, student mental health and well-being.
Marking the second fall reading week, the Silhouette conducted a survey looking at the current student views and whether the full-week recess was successful in achieving its intended goals since its inauguration. The survey seems to suggest that students are in favour of having a reading week, however some may reconsider its placement at a different time of the semester.
In total 307 responses were collected from students across all undergraduate faculties. The survey asked students how they used their fall reading and whether it helped them relax and recharge before facing their academic and extracurricular workload for the rest of the term.
From the data collected, it was clear that students were overwhelmingly in support of a fall reading week, with 91.9 per cent of students being in favour its inclusion.
Professor Gregg Flynn from the department of political science states the new addition of a fall reading has changed the delivery of courses.
“The insertion of a fall reading week has rather changed the way we have to think about the delivery our courses… with fall reading week coming right at the point we need an assessment, it has forced all of us to push our assessment up or have them earlier,” he said.
Due to the fall reading week, instead of assessments being spread over a three or four week period, they are either right before or after reading week.
“Its not done intentionally on our part to take advantage of the fact that students have a week off, rather it is we have to assess students early enough so that they can make a decision of whether they want to stay in a course or not.”
Students were also asked how they spent their reading week. The results indicated that most students used their week to relax and spend time with family, followed by studying for school, working for pay and volunteering.
Many students are in favour of the current reading week and its structure, referencing the importance of rest during the school year.
“It is necessary, especially for first year students who may be away from their family for the first time. It gives them a good opportunity to go back home and visit,” said Elise Lin, a fourth-year Chemical Biology student.
The survey also asked students about the stress and workload before and after reading week. When asked to rank stress levels during midterms on a scale of one to five, with five being the highest levels of stress, 88.6 per cent of students responded that their stress levels were at either a four or a five. When surveyed if the fall reading week was helpful in reducing stress levels, 90.2 per cent of students answered “very much” or “somewhat”.
Under the new academic schedule that includes the fall reading week, there is no longer time for a break between classes and fall end of term exams.
“This means that final exams are more squished together, and students are more pressed for time when studying for them,” said Lin.
Imaad Ali-Mohammed, a third-year Electrical Engineering student states, “I think reading week could be placed better near the end of the semester so that students can take advantage of it to catch up on their work. At the time reading week is given to us, students for the most part are already caught up on their work,”
The survey indicated that a fall reading week was successful in accomplishing the objectives that it was implemented for. Student stress levels were reported to decrease, giving them a much-needed rest from daily university activities, in addition to a time to relax and enjoy time with family.
However, the amount of study days received before final exams and increased workload after reading week leaves some debating whether the break was effective for its purposes. Nevertheless, the majority of upper-year students appreciated the break, despite the backlog it created.
In the initial news report announcing the fall break, Susan Searls Giroux, associate vice-president (Faculty), stated that the purpose of the full week fall break is, “to improve academic performance and mental health and well-being.”
The first phase of a study conducted by postdoctoral fellows at the McMaster Institute for Innovation and Excellence in Learning from earlier this year showed that close to 80 percent of McMaster students reported that the Fall Break was beneficial for increasing academic performance and reducing stress.
The concern and worry comes when considering the 20 percent of students who reported the break as being detrimental. The likely conclusion of the second phase of this study will be about workloads before and after the break as the leading stressor to students who dislike the current break. Loading up tests or evaluations in a short period of time would stress almost anyone out, even if there is a lot of preparation time.
Is it actually possible to make a timetable that would decrease the stress of this 20 percent? With courses needing a required set of tests and assessments, how do you balance these out to fit a bit of an awkward timescale, grade all of the content necessary and not need to front or backload the material for memorization?
Take your typical class that has some minor assignments, two midterms and an exam. Since a term has thirteen weeks of lectures until exams, it would seem to make sense to have a midterm on the fourth or fifth week and another on the eighth or ninth week. This isn’t actually what happens.
Having a midterm after the break is the sixth week of lectures for the year, and odds are your second midterm will be on the 10th or 11th week. With a cumulative exam, the third leg of your course is compressed so that the exam reviews more material that the previous tests already covered. This also pushes back the schedule for whatever review or introductions you do in week one. The post-break work makes sense for a lot of courses.
If there is a push to shift work to be further after the break, this would realistically only work for courses that would have one midterm. One in the seventh week out of 13 makes logical sense.
The only real solution is for some courses to move their midterms to before the break. What happens is that the first midterm is then worth less than the second because the first has less material due to less lecture time.
However, McMaster has already identified these timings and has had these plans of action for years, even before the extended break. Evidently, this still is not enough for some. Why?
While it is possible that some courses simply aren’t up to par with how they structure themselves, the answer is probably a lot simpler than that. The actual crux of the fall break dilemma is personal preference.
Do you prefer having all of your assessments at once with larger breaks or more evenly distributed? Do you like to be able to study over the break or use it to relax? Do you like having evaluations closer to exams for material to stay fresh or further away for longer review time? If you ask a number of people these questions and how they like to space their time out, you might get a different answer from every single one of them.
Anyone not in first year probably already knows this if you have ever asked more than one person how they felt about their exam schedule. Just add three more months and countless other graded assessments to make up the entire term.
There are so many research questions and thesis statements about how students like to learn, study and take tests, but so few about how they like their schedule to be for these things. Course evaluations have dozens of questions about the TAs and professors, but fewer about the course itself and only indirect connections with the timetable at best. With the introduction of the fall break that began last year at McMaster, the process for best working with it has not been given the priority it should by nearly any faculty on campus.
If McMaster wants to find solutions to help all of its students succeed, the answers will start with looking deeper into the biggest change its academic schedule has ever had and finding out what the students really want.
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By: Kaiwen Song
My 2015 winter term was pretty hectic. I had to prepare for two group presentations, three tests, a quiz, a full-day club event and an interview. While that sounds like enough stressors for an entire term, it all took place this week — the week after reading week. The break provides students with a chance to relax and recharge before facing their academic and extracurricular workload for the rest of the term. Unfortunately, it can also cause entire weeks — usually the one after the break — to be chockfull of assessments and commitments. Instead of a more even distribution of tasks over time, reading week concentrates those tasks to a much shorter time span.
The difficult situation that students find themselves in as a result of reading week is by no means impossible to navigate, but it does require committed organization and time management skills. We can take advantage of the ample free time that the break does provide to adequately prepare for all of their assessments. Unfortunately this means we must now be simultaneously prepared for up to five midterms as the break compresses the semester.
Reading week is by no means impossible to navigate, but it does require committed organization.
Entering the break, we often have the false impression that we actually have a lot of time to prepare. A full week without class sounds like ample time. Many use the first few days to relax and unwind, and are then in a constant state of stress for the remaining days of the break. Others feel tempted to use reading week for a week-long vacation and find themselves overwhelmed when they return. The alternative is bringing the work on vacation, although that probably means you’ll fail at both reading and relaxing.
The break also makes group projects harder to complete as many students spend their week away from McMaster, which makes it much more difficult to meet in person.
Instead of feeling refreshed after the break, students experience burnout. We end up performing worse on midterms simply due to the stress that comes with all the assignments due the week back.
Reading week also impacts our exams. Because of the midterm recess there is no break between the end of classes and the beginning of exam period, which certainly doesn’t reduce the pressure.
There is one straightforward solution to all of these problems: remove reading week.
Assessments and extracurricular commitments will no longer be so concentrated, which may reduce student burnout and the intense demand for mental health services in the middle of the term. Students will also have more time to study for each individual assessment when they are spread out, which may result in better academic performance overall.
Best of all, there can now be a week between end of classes and the beginning of exams, a week that students can take full advantage of in order to excel academically.
Photo Credit: Camera Eye Photography
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(Infographic updated to account for new information)
This time next year, McMaster students could be off on their first-ever fall break, but so far, there have been few signs this will happen in 2013.
With sessional dates to be presented to the Undergraduate Council in December, MSU President Siobhan Stewart has limited time to determine whether her proposed fall break will get the nod from the student body. She will then need to convince University administrators to make a change to next year’s calendar.
Stewart won the MSU presidential campaign in April with ‘fall break 2013’ as a major platform point.
The promised break could manifest itself in several ways, from an extra day off before Thanksgiving weekend to a full reading week.
At this point, Stewart says she’s not sure what she could accomplish in time for 2013.
“I can’t say whether or not a full reading week could happen next year. Something can happen. What that something is, I don’t know yet,” said Stewart, who said she would not identify concrete goals before finding out feasible options and polling students.
“My role is to get student feedback and try to get all the factors. In terms of getting that into the calendar, all I can really do is present [what students want]. I don’t have approval power, but my hope is that with substantial student voice behind me, that will add more weight to whatever it is they’re hoping for,” said Stewart.
As of yet, the MSU has not held a public student forum on fall break. Stewart said a survey of student opinion will be released in early November.
The survey will ask students for feedback on what is possible for fall break next year and whether or not they want to move toward a larger-scale initiative like a fall reading week.
Given the tight timeline for administrative approval, a full week off during fall 2013 is unlikely.
Stewart's electoral platform discussed introducing a fall break at Mac
Last week, Ryerson University joined several other universities in the GTA by having its inaugural fall reading week, giving students time off from classes between Oct. 8 and Oct. 12.
It was no easy feat, and Melissa Palermo, Vice President (Education) of the Ryerson Students’ Union can attest.
“We started work on getting a fall reading week in the 2010/2011 year,” said Palermo.
“We first wanted to get students’ opinions on whether or not it was something they wanted, and we got a mandate at our semi-annual general meeting in 2010. We did research on what happened at other campuses and wrote a proposal to the University Senate, and that proposal was passed in January of 2011. The whole process took about a year and a half.”
Phil Wood, Associate Vice President (Student Affairs) at McMaster said there are a number of administrative kinks to work out before a fall break of any kind could happen.
“There are several difficulties that must be worked through on our end. These include things like length of a term and exam schedules, which will need to be dealt with before we could consider even a pilot project,” said Wood.
As is the case for Ryerson, some professional programs at McMaster may not be able to reduce the number of weeks in the semester from 13 to 12.
In particular, engineering students need to spend a higher number of hours in class in order for their program to be accredited.
“Whether or not they would be able to take time off would depend on the steps we are able to take to replace these hours. This would not be a simple task,” said Maria White, Assistant Dean of Engineering.
At Ryerson, the faculty of engineering and architectural science was permitted to re-evaluate whether they wanted a reading week due to their accreditation requirements. Ultimately, the faculty decided not to participate.
“Their options were to find more class time or work through the reading week,” said Palermo.
The fall reading week debate has grown in popularity among Ontario universities over the past few years, with mental health concerns and student stress at the core of the discussion.
Debra Earl, McMaster’s Mental Health Team Nurse, wrote a proposal for fall break for submission to Student Affairs in 2009, to which she says she has received no response.
The report compares McMaster to peer institutions in Ontario and the U.S. and finds McMaster more stringent than other institutions in its scheduling accommodations for students.
The study shows the number of teaching days at McMaster was one of the highest in the province in 2009, with only two non-teaching days in the semester.
McMaster’s exam period (14 days) was also longer than nine other Ontario universities’ in 2009. McMaster had only one ‘study day’ before the start of exams.
“There might be a benefit to having exams spread out more, but what some schools do is have a condensed exam schedule and a longer study period beforehand,” said Earl.
At the time of Earl’s study, Laurentian, Trent, Nipissing and York had week-long breaks during the fall semester. Since then, the University of Ottawa and Ryerson University have jumped on board.
The University of Toronto offers a two-day mid-semester break in November, and Queen’s has a three-day study break in December.
At the moment, it is uncertain whether a fall break would be favourable to the majority of McMaster students, and in what capacity they would want it implemented. It also remains to be seen whether there is enough time to make it happen for the next academic year.
The Undergraduate Council will vote on next year’s sessional dates on Dec. 11. The schedule for 2013-2014 must be finalized before the printing of McMaster’s undergraduate calendar in March.
