Our Opinion: The UNC school system should run on a universal calendar to ease planning problems for students and families.
The UNC system, which projects an image of unity, has a different academic calendar for each college.
A unified academic schedule would benefit students and their families greatly.
As the semester winds down to a close, students’ thoughts shift from homework to home. Shopping malls filled with Santa Claus photo stands and sparkling garland can warm even the coldest of hearts. It’s about time to go home for the holidays.
But this year, final exams run until five days before Christmas, and for out-of-state students, this is especially frustrating because it leaves little time to travel and settle in for holiday festivities. This is also a menace for families of students graduating in December. Holiday traditions could need shifting for the sake of a graduation so late in the year.
If the entire UNC system had one calendar, students’ voices would have more resonance in the ears of administration because they could unite as one student body and tell the higher-ups what they like and dislike about how things are run with the calendar. With power like this, there’s a greater chance for more favorable scheduling.
Varying schedules across the system also has an impact on student life.
College is all about making new friends and expanding social networking, but it’s also very important to keep in touch with friends from high school, which is a tough feat if friends are all on different vacation schedules. If a group of friends at different colleges across the state could count on having the same spring break or winter vacation, this will enhance and sustain friendships that have been in place since childhood.
Keep in mind academic schedules also affect the lives of people who never set foot in a classroom.
For parents who may have children attending different colleges within the system, planning vacations or other family events around varying collegiate academic schedules for their children is seemingly impossible — as if financing more than one college education at a time wasn’t troublesome enough.
Even outside of the family, organizations across the world could benefit from a unified schedule within the UNC system. If all 16 colleges shared the same fall, winter and spring breaks, the impact of efforts, such as alternative spring break, would be drastically improved. Students from all UNC schools — from Winston-Salem State to Elizabeth City State, from UNC-Asheville to UNC-Wilmington — could unite to truly make a difference in the world.
So by shifting some dates around and gathering input from colleges across the state, the UNC system has the power to alleviate the headaches of students and families and enrich the lives of those across the state and around the nation.
