The South Dakota Board of Regents made a mistake yesterday, keeping spring break on its 2021 school calendar:
Brian L. Maher, the regents’ Executive and CEO said university and board officials considered adjusting the spring semester in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but there were mixed reactions to the options presented.
“We looked at proposals to adjust the start and end dates of the semester, as well as whether a spring break period was advisable. We weighed public health considerations and consulted with public health experts,” Maher said. “There were pros and cons to all. Absent a clear preference for changing the calendar, we opted to recommend the regents maintain the spring semester schedule as originally adopted.”
Each university will observe official holidays on Martin Luther King Jr. Day (January 18) and Presidents’ Day (February 15), Spring break will be observed March 8-12, and no classes or course assignments are scheduled for those dates. No classes will be held on Good Friday, which falls on April 2, 2021.
Maher noted that one clear theme emerged in his discussions with student leaders on campus.
“Students wanted their holiday and leave breaks maintained,” said Maher [Ben Jensen, “Spring 2021 Semester Proceeds as Planned at State Universities,” KNBN, 2020.10.07].
Hmm… I must have missed the memo from the CDC saying that what people want is the deciding criterion in preventing the spread of coronavirus.
Long breaks mean more travel. More travel, more contact among people who wouldn’t have had contact otherwise, inevitably means more cases of coronavirus. We saw that last spring; we’ll see it again next spring, if we conduct spring break as usual.
Many universities across the country are reading the science, seeing the cons outweigh the pros, and canceling Spring Break 2021, starting later, ending earlier, and making other calendar changes to reduce unnecessary travel and risk for gown and town.
Many of us want to go on long trips. My family planned a big trip for March this year, only to have to cancel when coronavirus blew up. We’d like to plan a replacement trip with our lingering airline credits, but we can’t responsibly do that. What we want and what we—not just those of us in this house with time and money to spend, but the bigger we, our friends and neighbors, We the People—need is to continue hunkering down, giving the coronavirus fewer chances to spread, giving the hospitals and critical patients more room to breathe, and giving the scientists more time to come up with and distribute a safe vaccine.
We want a spring break, but we don’t need one. SDSU students, take your spring break, but take it in the dorms, at home, with your books. Make spring break a reading week, not a virus-breeding week.
That tracks. HS saw booms in COVID infections because “the kids” wanted homecoming activities. Why would we expect anything different from college students?
The United States is a society on the brink of collapse because we have all been lead to believe that sacrifice is a dirty word — a thing to be avoided at all costs.
I remember when Jimmy Carter made the pitch that Americans could make it through the energy crisis if we made small sacrifices; if we kept the heat down and AC down. He was vilified for that.
Since then the mantra from the government is full speed ahead and look out for yourself. Bush 2 fought
wars in the Middle East “off-budget” so no Americans (except those serving) would have to sacrifice to pay for those wars. We cut taxes over and over to ensure our wealthy do not have to sacrifice to the good of the society they pray on.
There are many options if “students want their holiday” and that includes delaying the beginning of the Spring semester to lengthen the inter-semester break. Was that option even on the table for consideration?
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/21/colleges-make-plans-spring-cancel-break
Of related interest is the transparency of college COVID dashboards:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/10/08/many-colleges-publish-covid-dashboards-theres-no-uniform-standard-public-reporting
Dying in a Leadership Vacuum
October 8, 2020
N Engl J Med 2020; 383:1479-1480
Reckless and dangerously incompetent leadership at so many levels.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2029812?query=featured_home
And on THE other vital crisis, ignored by Trump/GOP and other world “leaders” in favor of the Koch Ilk Billionaires and Exxon Ilk corporate dinosaurs behind world economic inequality/wealth monopolization:
“While we would have preferred a much different ‘ending’ of the Kyoto Protocol, it played a critical role in its first period by driving innovation, raising awareness and catalysing climate action,” Yamide Dagnet, director of climate negotiations at the World Resources Institute, told Climate Home News.
Its lessons on measuring, reporting and reviewing emissions reductions should continue to inform the implementation of the Paris Agreement, she said. But “those most responsible for the climate crisis should have taken the lead in reducing emissions and it is deeply disappointing that many of them did not,” she added.
Although the US signed the protocol, it never ratified it. Japan, Russia, and Canada refused to take part in the second commitment period.
Under the Doha Amendment, countries were collectively required to cut emissions by at least 18% below 1990 levels by 2020. Recent data analysed by UN Climate Change shows the 37 developed countries had reduced emissions 25.3% by 2018.
Nigeria just became the 144 national ratifier of the amendment. https://www.climatechangenews.com/2020/10/02/nigeria-jamaica-bring-closure-kyoto-protocol-era-last-minute-dash/
In Minnesota there is a unified public higher education system. The University of Minnesota is at the top as the largest. There is a mid level tier of other 4 year schools and a 3rd tier of the smallest 4 yr schools. Then there are 2 year associate ed schools. Regents worked with the administrators at each level to build spring break plans.
I’m not sure which is which, but a tier is having their spring break divided into smaller segments of 3 day weekends. The lowest level does not have spring break. Another tier is having a 4 day weekend in March and another in April. The Gophers are the only ones having a full week as usual.
I don’t know what their criteria was for their decisions.