By GEOFF DUPAIX
Students will get another day off this year for the Thanksgiving weekend to travel or just enjoy being out of school.
BYU President Merrill J. Bateman said over the years students have requested an extra day to travel home to spend time with their families. He said the extra day is not on a trial basis, it is a permanent change.
“We believe it is important to allow students to have Wednesday to travel, especially for those students who live far away. It’s very difficult for them to get home and some students have to drive all night,” he said.
“There are two reasons why we did this. Our first concern was the safety of the students as they travel, and second, some students were leaving early, so we decided to allow the extra day,” he said.
Ron Bybee, assistant registrar and academic scheduling officer for BYU, said students will have to attend class Dec. 10 in exchange for the extra day for Thanksgiving weekend. He said Dec. 10 — a Thursday — will act as a Friday class day so students who have Tuesday/Thursday classes will not have class that day.
Bybee said class scheduling is so tight that there was no other way to work in an extra day of class to compensate for the extended Thanksgiving break. So, the school is just swapping days. He said students lose one day of Christmas vacation, but overall they won’t gain or lose any vacation time.
“We’re taking away nothing, in fact we’re giving (the students) what they’ve asked for. I don’t think any of us view it as a loss of vacation time. We view it as a safety day to travel home and spend another important day with their families,” he said.
Paul Hunt, 22, a sophomore from Alberta, Canada, majoring in construction management, said swapping vacation days shouldn’t affect the Christmas break at all.
“I think it’s good because school right now is getting to be a headache. So its nice to have the extra day because we have two weeks of Christmas vacation and one day doesn’t make that much difference,” he said.
Jaime Mormann said she thinks the decision is a wise move by school administrators. Mormann, 22, a junior from Boston majoring in design said the extra day is a big deal because it makes traveling a lot safer and she can actually have some time at home.
“I personally can’t ever use my Thanksgiving vacation for anything because it costs $700 to fly home and then I’m only there three days. I usually take the day before Thanksgiving off anyway, so I think it works out a lot better,” she said.
Students said trying to cram school and travel into just one day is too much and it forces students to be less cautious when they are on the road.
For example, Leah Fisher, 18, a freshman from San Diego with an open major, said she is going to travel part of the way home Tuesday night, then drive the rest of the way on Wednesday. That way she’s not in such a hurry.
However, President Bateman said students shouldn’t expect the administration to give in and cancel Monday and Tuesday classes. He said the school has to have a certain amount of class days per semester to comply with accreditation guidelines.
