Carleton has officially made the fall break a permanent fixture in the school’s calendar, with the Senate voting overwhelmingly in favour of continuing the fall break at a meeting on Nov. 28.
The only Senate member to vote against a fall break on Nov. 28 was public affairs representative Paul Wilson. There were no abstentions from the vote.
The Senate vote follows recommendations made in a Senate Committee on Curriculum, Admission and Studies Policy (SCCASP) report to continue the fall break.
The recommendations were made mainly as a result of the Nov. 11-14 referendum results, said the report.
In the referendum, about 85 per cent of students and faculty voted in favour of continuing the break. 11,481 students or 40.6 per cent of the total student population voted in the poll.
Carleton’s fall break will not align with Thanksgiving but the university will try to match the week with the University of Ottawa’s, said Donald Russell, chair of the SCCASP.
Suzanne Blanchard, associate vice-president (students and enrolment), said the University of Ottawa will have its fall break on the last week of October for the next four years, the same time Carleton had its in 2013 and 2014.
“We cannot guarantee that the University of Ottawa will not change [its planned fall break], but right now, what I’ve been trying to discuss with them is trying to stay in sync,” Blanchard said.
Russell said some faculty members felt a fall break aligning with Thanksgiving would cause conflict with quarter-credit courses, be disruptive to teaching early in the year, and interrupt lab schedules operating on a bi-weekly basis.
If Remembrance Day were to become a statutory holiday in Ontario, it would have an effect on when fall breaks would be scheduled, Russell said.
Some Senate members voiced concern that a later exam schedule would make booking flights home for students more difficult.
Blanchard clarified that informing students of exam times any earlier would be impossible.
According to Blanchard, exams must be scheduled after the students finalize their courses in order to avoid conflicts.
The week was also deliberately called fall break instead of fall reading week.
“SCCASP have not given firm rules of what professors can and cannot do, but the general idea is it’s a break from class activities,” Russell said.
Seventy per cent of students voted in favour of a fall reading week in 2012. After the vote, the Senate agreed to implement a fall break on a two-year trial basis, with the first one taking place in 2013.
