On Tuesday, the University Faculty Senate voted with a 105-62 majority to recommend changing the academic calendar. The recommendation states that the semester should be shortened by half a week, final exams will be only four days and fall break will be moved to the week of Thanksgiving.

The senate will bring its recommendation to President Graham Spanier in a meeting next month. If he approves the changes they can be implemented as early as Fall 2003.

While spring break falls in the middle of the spring semester, Thanksgiving occurs close to the end. Without fall break, students will have to work for 13 weeks straight before they receive a substantial vacation.

Frequent breaks are needed, both for the mental and physical health of students. Without a fall break students will become stressed out, leading to poorer attention in classes, poorer health and poorer attendance.

Many professors complained last semester that too many students skipped classes the days before breaks. This is an inevitable occurrence before any break, because students plan trips and want to get home faster.

If fall break and Thanksgiving are condensed into one break, students will still cut class the day before Thanksgiving, which will still annoy professors. While the new calendar reduces the cut days from two to one, it does not solve the problem. Also, large absences the day before breaks should not concern professors. College students are adults who can make adult decisions. If they feel they can academically handle missing a day of class, that is their choice to make. Manipulating the calendar to prevent this is not in the students' best interest. Also, if faculty members are so concerned about students missing class days, why did they vote to shorten the academic calendar?

According to a Nov. 27 Collegian article, the Undergraduate Student Government Academic Assembly voted against any change to the current calendar because they felt it would be "detrimental to students' academic welfare."

The Assembly stated in their resolution that, "students who take academics seriously, work hard, and adhere to the university's policies deserve a mid-semester break to visit with family and meet academic and non-academic responsibilities."

This is especially true for freshmen who cannot have cars on campus. With the limited bus schedule, freshmen could go almost three months of their first semester away from home without seeing their family.

Fall break is only three years old, and was originally implemented by the Assembly to give students a break before Thanksgiving. Now, against popular-student opinion, the hard work of the Assembly is undone. This decision was not made in the best interest of the students. Their health, both mental and physical, needs to be considered in the decision to eliminate fall break.