No one will ever be completely happy with the academic calendar.

Penn State President Graham Spanier talked at both the University Faculty Senate meeting in Harrisburg Oct. 26 and the Undergraduate Student Government Academic Assembly meeting Nov. 1 about the call to eliminate the fall study day.

Spanier said he has received e-mail messages from professors who want the day to be a regular day of classes.

However, Spanier said he wants to wait five years before re-evaluating the academic calendar. We appreciate Spanier's reluctance to discuss changing the study day only a few years after it was implemented. We hope that he will continue to listen to and stand up for the students on this issue.

But it might be in the university's best interest to start evaluating the value of the day off now, when the students who have seen the calendar changes are still here. In five years, the large majority of the students who are here now will be long gone. If the university actually started to evaluate the calendar now, it would find that the fall study day is a necessary break for students.

Professors might be concerned that their lessons are being lost because students take an extra day or two before or after the study day to travel home. This happens before and after every break we have, whether it be Thanksgiving or spring break or the study day. It's inevitable. If students decide to leave campus early or return after classes start up again, that is their choice to miss those classes.

Professors are not expected to stop teaching on those days, no matter how many students decide to skip them. The teachers have to be there regardless of how many people are sitting in the classroom, and the people who are not there will have to deal with the grade consequences or the make-up work on their own. On the contrary, Spanier even encouraged professors to still hold classes on the Monday and Tuesday before the Thanksgiving holiday.

From the beginning of the semester until Thanksgiving is a long time to attend classes straight through without a break.

By the time Thanksgiving rolls around, there are two weeks left in the semester. Plus, the calendar runs late into December, giving less than a week of break before Christmas. The two-day fall break was eliminated to allow the university to close the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, leaving us with one day.

Even that single day is important, though, because students need to have a break earlier in the year, if for no reason other than protecting their sanity.