Issue date: 4/9/09 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: Natalie Cervantes [Click to enlarge]

Every year, millions of us look forward to this time in the semester. We've just gotten back from Spring Break and realized the consequences of not doing anything for a week. Our families are still sore about our going to some paradisiacal island with our friends instead of visiting them for a week. We've got a single month to do a semester's worth of research and reading and studying and whatever else it is we are supposed to do. Then, like the Lady of the Lake offering King Arthur his Excalibur, Gov. Perry wrote an e-mail offering Good Friday off, completely obscuring the religious meaning of the day for some people. But that's another issue.

Technically, the tradition is for all classes after noon to be cancelled, but professors usually join in on the fun and just make it easy by cancelling classes no matter what time they meet. Sounds like a plan, right? Well, it's taken me three years, but I finally have heard people complaining about this. Of course, they were professors. Two of my profs have complained about how this unforeseeable change in the calendar makes planning classes so difficult. I'm no authority on pedagogical paradigms, but if the University calendar can see a year out in advance, scheduling this April 10th as a reading day, then professors ought to be able to plan accordingly. Leaving the overlooked travails of professors behind, do we really need Good Friday off? Yes!

I assume that the primary objection to having Good Friday off is because it is an exclusively Christian holiday, and it is therefore some kind of discrimination against students of other religions. How giving all students time off is discriminatory, I'll never know. More importantly, if religious exclusivity is the grounds for wanting to stay in school on a Friday, why not demand we stay in school straight through Thanksgiving, a Christian-based holiday. Better yet, since the 'winter' break we enjoy at the end of each fall semester is clearly based around at least two religious holidays, why not object to that, too? Because it's more than just one day?

By giving us Good Friday off every year, the governor is simply serving students' needs. Easter is traditionally a time spent with family and friends at home, enjoying food and candy and the company of people you love. Giving students one more day to hang out with siblings and friends, to get caught up on reading before a test, to feed our cavities, or to relax because we were working during Spring Break is nothing to denounce. Administrators, professors, and students can all see it coming a year away, and almost everyone I know looks forward to a brief break in the routine before being smothered by Parents' Weekend, Ring dunks, fundraisers, projects, papers, tests, work, and whatever else might scheme to keep us from enjoying the beautiful weather outside. There's no good reason we should be kept here on Friday.

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