From historic Veterans Day offering a sneak peak into Thanksgiving break, to a day of honor like Martin Luther King Jr. Day providing respite until Spring Break, students may foster feelings of anticipation looking forward to their next day off.
As of right now, a list of institutionally recognized holidays is available online from the Office of the Registrar in conjunction with a letter to the student body from the Dean of Students, Kevin Dougherty, regarding religious holiday accommodations and how to request them from faculty or staff.
However, attention has been brought to the fact that university students across Oregon, such as those attending Oregon State University and the University of Oregon, do not receive a federal holiday, Presidents’ Day — officially known as Washington’s Birthday — off from their academic affairs.
According to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Human Resource Management’s website, the government federally acknowledges 11 holidays including, but not limited to Memorial Day, Labor Day, Juneteenth and Independence Day. This poses the question: what constitutes a “holiday” for universities in Oregon?
Endi Hartigan, communications director for Oregon’s Higher Education Committee, said “The state of Oregon has a list of holidays for all state agencies … (our) 99% sure answer is that the universities are not required to follow that.”
Essentially, this means holidays are under the jurisdiction of each university independently rather than the state as a whole. Consequently, this then shifts the question from the perspective of the state government to students’ respective schools, leading these individuals to wonder what qualifications a specific university needs to justify giving students the day off.
Naturally, this led to further inquiry with Associate Vice Provost and University Registrar at Oregon State University Rebecca Mathern who said, “The goal is to have 49 to 50 days per term. We typically end up with one holiday in a term that affects us hitting 50 days … But beyond that we try to find other days to ensure a full term.”
While this reflects the redistribution of days from an academic standpoint, this may not be a method that affected students agree with.
This is especially true when some use these days for catching up on homework, resting from a difficult week or taking the opportunity to go out and just generally switch up their surroundings. Additionally, some students may take advantage and use these opportunities to visit family or reconnect with relatives, considering some students live further from Corvallis or even out of state. Others may be looking to attend an event or otherwise celebrate the holiday.
Ella Beebe, a second-year environmental science student said, “I think we should (get other holidays off) … it’s weird that some states take (President’s Day) off and some states don’t. Like it should be all states do or all states don’t.”
Additionally, when she learned about the distribution system described by Mathern and understood their rationale, Beebe said, “Just add another day to the end of the term … Or move one day from our break to the end, you know?”
Instead of removing what some students believe to be sporadic moments of rest throughout the term, they believe it could be more beneficial to extend the terms at their ends as opposed to their current method of reallocation.
