Students Can Never Catch a Break: Reason Behind Maryland Schools’ Ineligibility for Fall Breaks

One question students frequently ask during the fall semester is “when will we ever get a break?” Some universities have students, faculty, and staff go 70 or 80 days before they are given some sort of substantial break for Thanksgiving. While many students, faculty, and staff in Maryland schools specifically wonder why is it that the only “break” given in the fall is Thanksgiving break, there are some underlying stipulations hindering any move to include an additional one or two days of break when Thanksgiving break already exists. The days to give students, faculty, and staff off are already spent to go home for Thanksgiving; however, due to high academic demands and high levels of stress for students in the fall, many still wonder why there could not be more days to give students some more time to recuperate from a tough semester.

A “dead” FSU campus when students go home for break to recuperate. Photo Credit: Sam Metz

The biggest reason why Maryland schools such as Frostburg State University, Towson University, University of Maryland College Park, and Salisbury University (to name a few) do not have the privilege of receiving a fall break in addition to Thanksgiving break is because each of these universities fall under the University System of Maryland. USM is a group of public institutions in the state of Maryland that work under the guidelines and procedures of the University System of Maryland’s standards. The universities under the USM umbrella do not get to call all of the shots when they create their academic calendar; each university will create their respective calendars based on some constraints designated by the USM.

Picture of the locations of each USM university to show the geographical placement of each school and the total number of schools in the system. Photo taken from the USM website. 

Some constraints for the fall include fall start date and spring commencement be within 9-months, each semester include 43 MWF classes and 29 TR classes, and having at least two class days off for Thanksgiving (Thursday and Friday). A full calendar of all USM academic calendar constraints can be found on the USM website. 

Based on the current USM regulations, no University System of Maryland schools have a designated “fall” break.

Administration in various Maryland schools are the individuals receiving first hand communication with USM and are obligated to abide by all standards. If any administration would want to try to give an additional break in the fall, they would have to contact the administration for USM and hope that they could allow an additional break, but that may be difficult due to the constraints.

Dr. Tom Bowling is the current interim president at Frostburg State University. In his 39 years working with FSU, he has never once seen the school have a fall break, and just recently the university also allowed students, faculty, and staff the Wednesday before Thanksgiving off as well.

“We go a long time in the first semester without a break,” says Bowling.

He shared more about Frostburg’s history of being in various school systems. Before USM was created in 1988, FSU was previously a part of the Board of Trustees of State Colleges and Universities. Being under USM now, Frostburg has to abide by the common calendar created by USM.

When asked about whether he thought FSU should have a fall break, Bowling commented that he has “mixed feelings.” He sees the value in having a fall break, but there are some costs such as having to maybe return to school earlier and sacrificing a precious week of summer vacation.

Other USM school administrators commented on the concept of fall breaks. Chuck Wilson works at the University of Maryland College Park as the Associate Vice President for Records, Registration, and extended studies, and he has his own opinions about fall break. When asked if he thought his institution should have a fall break, he simply said “no.” He did suggest maybe the idea of extending Thanksgiving break to include the Monday and Tuesday before that Wednesday students already get off, but again he notes that it is difficult to do that due to the USM instructional calendar requirements.

Deb Moriarty is the Vice President of Student Affairs at Towson University, and she has also never seen Towson have a fall break in the 12 years she has worked there. She too understands the USM calendar constraints and how hard it could be to try to submit a proposal for approval of a fall break.

Moriarty knows the procedures USM created are difficult to get around, but she still comments: “I can see how tired and stressed the students are right now.”

Not only are schools in the University System of Maryland not receiving fall breaks, but some community colleges in Maryland also choose to not give students an additional two-day fall break. Community colleges create their own academic calendar and determine whether or not it is in their best interest to include a fall break.

Mr. Brad Stewart is the Vice President and Provost of Montgomery Community College, and in a phone interview he jokes that his community college does partake in a fall break.

“We do, it’s called Thanksgiving break. [chuckles]”

He believes that there is no time to give students a fall break, and while he does think it could help students relieve stress, he also feels that it sacrifices the time teachers want to have in the classroom.

“I know teachers want as much class time as possible,” chuckles Stewart. He also mentions that Montgomery college has teachers reach a certain amount of teaching hours during each semester that teachers are afraid to lose.

Mike Martin works at Hagerstown Community College as the Director of Academic Advisement, and he feels that time is the biggest reason why many schools never have the opportunity to have a break in the fall. He is also aware of the teachers at his institution and how precious the time they have with students is.

“I know teachers do not want to lose any more classroom time,” says Martin.  

One professor that does not share the traditional “no break “mentality is Professor Duncan from the Frostburg State University English Department.  Although Mr. Duncan recognizes that having a designated fall break would have some logistical difficulties, he still said “I’m all for breaks. Sure, why not” to having a fall break.  Mr. Duncan further supports the implementation of a fall break by stating that the break “wouldn’t eliminate stress, but it will help”.  Fundamentally Mr. Duncan’s responses seem to mean that from a teachers perspective breaks could be highly beneficial for the students and that if scheduled properly it could become something supported by more teachers as well.

Some Maryland schools choose to not be a part of a university school system. St. Mary’s College of Maryland and Morgan State University are two Maryland schools not a part of any system. Since these schools have no system to respond to, they can make any decisions for their calendars and can include fall breaks if they choose to.

Joanne Goldwater is the Associate Dean of students and Director of Residence Life at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, and this institution gives students, faculty, and staff a fall break that they call “fall reading days.”

“We do not have classes on Columbus Day (Monday) and Tuesday. It comes around our mid-terms, so reading days were implemented to give students time to prepare for their exams,” says Goldwater.

Goldwater also comments that the “reading days” are a great “stress-buster” for students at her institution. St. Mary’s has included these reading days in the late 90s, so students have been given an extra break at this school for the past couple years. When asked why other schools do not have fall breaks, Goldwater responds, “I think it is something that each institution needs to decide for themselves.”

Allegany County Community college has also adjusted their fall semester calendar to give students a small fall break. ACC’s Director of Public Relations and Marketing, Shauna McQuade, discussed how the community college just recently included a fall break into the academic calendar.

“We started adjusting our fall semester calendar to include a fall break in 2007,” says McQuade.

The community college did not have a university system to request permission for a fall break from, but McQuade mentioned how a Calendar Committee had to be sent a request in order for the discussion of including a break could begin. She said that it was the faculty that wanted to see a fall break enacted in order to allow students “a few days to regroup.”

Table outlining start/end dates, possible fall breaks, and Thanksgiving breaks of USM schools and neighboring universities. Credit Joel Russ.

Some universities in Maryland, and even some universities in neighboring states, do or do not have the full discretion of determining whether their institution can have a fall break or not. Either way, the individuals getting the greatest impact of the decisions about fall break are the students. Students are getting more and more stressed during their fall semesters and would love to have an extra few days to recuperate when the time of the school year is at its most difficult. Students at some schools get the luxury of having an extra two days off for a break, and for the most part those extra two days off helps leads them to a successful ending to their semester. 

“Having an extra two days off did help diminish my stress,” says Kelly Stake, Biology major at West Virginia University. Stake, who is also majoring in Psychology, felt like she was sleep deprived, and a 2-day fall break was a nice way to recollect her self.

Many schools like Hagerstown Community College, Radford University, Potomac State College, Slippery Rock University and Mount St. Mary’s all give their students time off during the fall.

For many students at these colleges the breaks enables them to relief stress and regroup for the second half of the semester.

Rachel Drury, a Radford University grad, felt like having a fall break allowed her to decompress and prepare for the "mid-semester slump" that many students face during the first semester.

“The break allowed me to be able to catch up on anything that I was falling behind on and plan ahead to try and gain momentum when I came back for the second half of the semester.”

In her time at Radford University, Drury was able to experience not having and eventually having a fall break. “Being able to go from no fall break to having a fall break definitely helped mentally, emotionally and physically.” 

Alexis Lockley, a general studies student at Hagerstown Community College felt like the break gave her the opportunity to be with her loved ones. “Fall break from HCC gives me a short but needed break from school and it gives me time to relax with family and friends.”

Kelly Stake from West Virginia University felt like the break interrupted her studies, but in her own words, “that’s really just me."

Unlike Kelly Stake, many who had a fall break found it extremely beneficial like Rachel Drury from Redford.

“Having the break was beneficial. It was something everyone looked forward to, even professors. Midterms aren’t a huge deal at Redford so it didn’t interrupt studies, and then when you came back you had a week until midterms.”

Erin McGuireà, a current student at Mount St. Mary’s College, said “Having a fall break was beneficial because it allowed time for rest, potential vacation, and time with family and friends.”

                                                                                                                      

McGuireà also felt like the break had a positive impact on her performance in the classroom. “I would say that fall break positively impacted my performance in the classroom because if I knew fall break was coming up, I would try to perform in the class to end well."

Bethany Biser, social work student at Potomac State College also found the break beneficial.

“Having a fall break benefitted me because it gave me a little breather in the middle of the semester. Our midterms were posted that Monday (the 12^th) of the fall break so it gave us a little relief that midterms were over.”

“I totally found the break beneficial,” says Biser.

Kimberly Clark from Slippery Rock University disagreed with Stake, Drury, McGuireà and Biser. She found her self on the fence saying “It didn’t really interrupt my studies but I didn’t find it very beneficial because the professor gives you so much work to do that you can't really go through the very short break without stressing about the large amount of work that you have to get done.”

While Clark may not be sure of how beneficial fall break is, many students at other colleges without fall breaks are advocating for their school to install one. 

Implementing fall breaks has been an age-long discussion that will continue to happen as long as students are getting more and more stressed (visit this article for more about college student stress) during the fall. The stress placed on students is an issue affecting all students regardless where their university is or what system of schools they are a part of. Ultimately when schools are a part of a bigger system, obtaining a fall break will remain slim because the decision will never be up to the individual schools.