By Billy Ingle
Every year, some Texas Tech University students skip out on classes the week of Thanksgiving or complain about the timing of spring break. There is a method to the madness that is scheduling the academic calendar, including holiday breaks.
Students said they would like to have a fall break like other universities and have all of Thanksgiving week off. Due to Texas Tech offering two-week intersession courses, it is hard to make those dreams a reality.
Blaine Hill/The Hub@TTU
Garrett McKinnon, director of the office of official publications for Texas Tech, said the main goal when coordinating the academic calendar is following the guidelines the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board sets as best as possible.
McKinnon said his office plans the Texas Tech academic calendar five years in advance. He said before the calendar goes into place, it has to be approved by the academic counsel.
Ben Young, a finance major, said he visits home on average two times a semester, but could see himself visiting more if he had a fall break.
“A lot of my friends at different colleges have a fall break, where they can go home or go somewhere to enjoy a four-day weekend,” Young said. “If Tech had a fall break it would give students and opportunity to go visit their families, and have a little stress reliever.”
Young said he and his family travel to his grandparents’ house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for Thanksgiving. He said not having school the whole Thanksgiving week would allow him and his family four extra days to travel and stay with his grandparents.
The week spring break falls on is not terribly important, Young said, but if he had the choice he would pick to be on the same spring break with Oklahoma University and Arkansas University.
Landon Currier, a public relations major, said he goes home once a semester, and sometimes not at all during the spring semester. Because he is from Brawley, California, he said traveling is more difficult for him than it is for other students.
“I think the way the calendar is set up is fine,” Currier said. “I would rather just stay here, than go home for a random two or three days.”
Currier said he would like to have all week off for Thanksgiving break, but because he is flying he still gets to enjoy five days with his family. He said if he did have the full week off he would most likely drive back home, instead of flying.
Currier said because there are so many universities across the country, he understands we cannot all have spring break on the same week. He said there are certain universities he would like to have spring break with, but feels no matter what, Tech’s spring break will be on the same week as some schools.
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board believes the two-week intersession courses are very important to students, and want Texas Tech to offer them in the fall and winter, McKinnon said. This is a partial result in why our breaks between semesters are longer than other schools.
McKinnon said the THECB has a set amount of hours of contact between students and professors in class. He said because we are close to minimum amount of contact hours already, more breaks might not get approved.
McKinnon said his office takes in account what other universities are doing for some holidays. He said most universities in Texas chose to put spring break on the third week of March next semester, which includes Texas Tech. He said some schools do not chose to do that, but it is impossible for every Texas school to have the same schedule.
“We have worked a lot with the Student Government Association in recent years about certain calendar issues,” McKinnon said. “We’re certainly open to suggestions, and the entire university is open to suggestions. If there was a way we could implement a fall break or something like that, within the confines of what we’re doing, we would be interested in doing that.”
To see the academic calendar for this school year, click here.
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