University officials plan on moving spring break to the second week of March next year.
As Ohio University students begin to pack their bags and wrap up their last-minute coursework, they may be looking forward to hitting the beach or enjoying the outdoors at home during spring break.
Next year, however, the university will push spring break back a week later.
OU then will join most other schools in Ohio with a spring break during the eighth week of the semester, which often falls during the second week of March.
“The university has evaluated other weeks for different reasons over the past few years,” Craig Cornell, senior vice provost for Strategic Enrollment Management, said in an email. “Effective with the 2016-17 academic calendar, it has been decided that spring break will be the week following the eighth week of classes. This will push the spring break out by one week from what it has been.”
In the past few years, including this academic year, spring break has fallen midway through the semester. The main reason the university chose that date was to evenly split the semester.
Most other students in the state, however, will still have classes next week. OU is one of a handful of schools to have spring break during the first week of March. Most other schools wait until at least the second week of the month.
“Prior to the university transitioning to semesters in fall 2012-13, there were lots of discussion regarding the academic calendar,” Cornell said in an email. “It was decided at that time to set spring break to be in the middle of the semester as a starting point with the ability to go back in future years and evaluate this practice. Thus, spring break has been the week following the seventh week of the semester.”
Some students think the break is too early and limits options for travel.
“It’s so early, and it kind of sucks because it’s still so cold outside,” Ellen Shipley, a sophomore studying middle childhood education, said.
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Cornell said spring break has fallen during that week since the switch to semesters during the 2012-13 academic year.
“It was right in the middle of the Spring Semester,” he said in an email. “(There are) seven weeks of classes, spring break and then the last seven weeks of classes and final exams.”
Mahalah Talbert, a freshman studying history, said she’s going to New York over spring break, but thinks the timing of the break is strange.
“It’s kind of weird going to New York during spring break and knowing it might be cold,” she said. “But it will be better when I go back home to the South, where I’m from, because it should be warm.”
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