For any students who have experienced difficulty making it home for Thanksgiving or back to school after Easter, recently approved changes to the Academic Calendar may alleviate some of the stress.Starting next year, students will receive a half-day vacation the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, with the University closing at 12:30. Robert Doolos, registrar of the University Registrar, said the change will allow students more time to travel home for Thanksgiving. “Typically, they just receive off that Thursday and Friday,” Doolos said. “How do you get home if you’re in class on Wednesday, and you have to drive home to Texas?”Additionally, Spring Break will be moved to the week after Easter Sunday. Doolos said this was done to help students and faculty with children enrolled in elementary schools in Baton Rouge. “It was a day-care issue,” Doolos said. “East Baton Rouge Parish schools have their break after Easter. The breaks didn’t over-lap.”Student Government Senator Andy Pallermo, Arts and Sciences, said he received numerous requests from students to make this change. “Students’ biggest concern was moving Spring Break,” Pallermo said. “Students were having to leave family events on Easter Sunday to come back here to make it to class on Monday.”Erica James, psychology freshman, said she likes the of idea Spring Break following Easter. “We have to come back on Easter to go to school the next day,” James said. “I never have been happy about that.” One change students may not be as excited about is the addition of a half-day of classes, beginning at 12:30, to the Wednesday after Mardi Gras.This half-day had to be added to the schedule to off-set a day lost by the movement of Spring Break. “Under the current schedule, Good Friday, which is a state holiday that we have to give off, was covered under Spring Break,” Pallermo said. “And with moving it, we still have to give that day. We couldn’t give that additional day off and not make it up.”Pallermo admits students will be concerned about this change, but said the overall opinion he received from students was in favor of the decision. “We had a facebook group with 400 to 500 members, and they would write on the wall how they felt,” Pallermo said. “Overwhelmingly, they would take the moving of Spring Break to after Easter and give up that half-day after Mardi Gras.”Ashton Lowe, mass communication sophomore, said students will have a hard time making it to class on Ash Wednesday.”I think if students don’t want to go that day, they’re not going to go,” Lowe said. “Most students might be hungover.”Members of SG, Faculty Senate and Staff Senate formed a committee to decide the Academic Calendar changes to recommend for approval. The recommendation was then sent to Interim Chancellor William Jenkins, who transmitted it to the Board of Supervisors for approval. The Board approved the new calendar Aug.. 5.—-Contact Katie Kennedy at [email protected]