IUSA executives work on fall break behind the scenes

As the Bloomington Faculty Council’s Calendar and Schedule Committee prepares to debate a possible fall break, IU Student Association executives know exactly where they stand.

“I am a big proponent of the proposal that was given to the BFC,” IUSA Vice President for Administration and senior Jack McCarthy said.

The proposal currently before the committee consists of a planned two-day break in October and a guaranteed Labor Day holiday. That plan would also necessitate an earlier, Wednesday start to classes and a shortened summer session.

Fall break has been a major platform issue for at least the last two election cycles. Since the plan would be accepted after IUSA’s inauguration Thursday, a fall break would be implemented under the iUnity administration.

While finishing fall break was one of iUnity’s platform initiatives during the recent campaign, most of the progress made on the initiative is due to the Btown administration.

As early as last summer, McCarthy said that he and president and junior Peter SerVaas met with administrators specifically to discuss the topic of a fall break and in the fall pushed for a meeting of the Calendar and Schedule Committee.

They then passed the project on to Chief of Fall Break Initiative and senior Abby Kaericher. Kaericher met with the Calendar and Schedule Committee and began to develop the current fall break plan.

McCarthy said until now, that’s as far as IUSA has ever gotten when discussing a fall break with the committee.

The BFC committee is traditionally resistant to calendar adjustments, SerVaas said.
Because any change would require a restructuring of syllabi and courses and would affect countless departmental and registrar schedules, some faculty have expressed opposition to the proposal.

However, McCarthy said these concerns can either be addressed within the proposal or do not affect enough of the university to justifying shooting it down.

McCarthy said he supports the proposal for several reasons.

First, he said, it would give students a much needed rest at a crucial time in the semester. McCarthy said some opponents argue that a fall break is not granted to most of working America, and the distinction must be made between the work environment and that of a campus.

“Not everybody in America gets a fall break, but working is very different than learning or teaching,” McCarthy said. “It takes up a lot of your mental horsepower.”

McCarthy also said a break in early October would benefit students psychologically. Finally, he said he supports the proposal because it would “help curb the party culture of IU.”

McCarthy said some students elect to pay a fee and move into the dorms as soon as they open on the Sunday before traditional Wednesday move in. McCarthy said this practice leaves those students with as many as eight responsibility-free days to get into mischief.

By starting classes on a Wednesday, the proposed calendar would cut down the number of free days during Welcome Week because students would move in on the weekend before Wednesday class.

If the proposal isn’t passed, IUSA’s new administration plans to head back to the drawing board.

President-elect and junior Michael Coleman said he supports the current proposal because of the psychological and academic benefits it would provide students.

Since a fall break was one of iUnity’s platform initiatives, Coleman said a complete denial by the Calendar and Schedule Committee would necessitate an overhaul of the current plan.

“If it was turned down, we would look at different proposals that we could come up with that would be beneficial to the current faculty.”