Students may soon enjoy holidays, breaks and weekends without worrying about coursework and assignments if a proposed Student Government resolution proves to be effective.
Student Government Resolution 21 is “a resolution to urge the Office of Academic Affairs to implement a policy prohibiting coursework from being assigned and/or due during times of campus closure.”
The resolution will go to committee and be voted on Nov. 5 at the SG Senate’s next meeting.
With workloads that never seem to let up, some students are behind SG in its efforts to reduce the amount of work placed on students.
Computer science sophomore Terrell Love said the resolution is a good idea because coursework during breaks could present problems for out-of-town students.
“Breaks are supposed to be the students’ time off,” Love said. “If you have to do homework over the break, you’re not really having a real break.”
Environmental engineering sophomore Dustin Haffner said he feels the resolution is reasonable and “makes sense.”
“I’ve often gotten off for a break and it’s not really a break because some teachers are different, but some of them will just sort of double up the work so you don’t get behind,” Haffner said. “It seems like the teachers are rushing to get through the material because their time seems to be limited.”
Haffner said he has been assigned coursework during times of University closure and holidays.
“In fact, I can’t exactly remember not having work to do over a holiday or a time when the University was closed,” Haffner said.
Haffner said the real issue is the amount of material that needs to be covered during the semester. He said the coursework should not be reduced, but the semester should be extended a week or two.
“Spend two class periods covering one chapter as opposed to one class period covering two chapters,” Haffner said.
Both Haffner and Love said they don’t think some professors or instructors would adhere to such a policy if passed.
Steven Pomarico, biology instructor and member of the Faculty Senate, said assigning coursework specifically for a break is “bad policy.” He does not see a problem with work assigned during the week that extends into the weekend of a break.
Pomarico used an example of coursework that’s assigned to class on a Tuesday and extends through the weekend but isn’t due until Sunday night.
Pomarico said giving students more time rather than less seems to be the better solution. He said with students’ busy lives, limiting the flexibility and confining the time to complete assigned coursework could hurt students.
“I think flexibility is an important aspect of this,” he said. “This is one of those [situations] where I understand, sort of, the motivation of Student Government, but if they’re now diminishing the flexibility that the students have as to when they’re going to be able to do assignments, that’s only creating more hardships for the students in the long run.”
Pomarico said some faculty might be opposed to the resolution because of their academic freedom to assign coursework how they see fit.
He said he understands where SG is coming from but warned that sometimes when rules are made, they have unseen consequences.
“Be careful what you’re asking for, because it might actually be a worse scenario,” Pomarico said. “To make rules that you can’t do it at all, then that’s only asking for trouble.”
The Daily Reveille contacted the sponsor of the resolution, senator Jacques Petit, but he was not immediately available for comment.