Revive Dead Day
Former VSU President William McKinney adjusted the academic calendar by reinstating Fall Break and eliminating Dead Day. He knew that the constant debate of whether or not to have the two items had been prolonged enough. Dr. McKinney said he believed that his decision “serves the best interest of most Valdosta State students, faculty, and staff” (Edwards, “Dead Day Gone”). While the elimination of Dead Day should have benefited everyone the students didn’t benefit as much as the teachers, so Dead Day should be reinstated to allow students an extra day before finals to study and relax.
Whether or not to keep such a day has actually been a serious issue for years at Valdosta State University, and the ultimate decision of eliminating
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Dead Day in place of an extra day of exams has been a long battle amongst students, faculty, and staff members. Dead Day gave students a free day to set aside their stress filled agendas so that they can relax and study for their final exams. So they hoped that the issue could be resolved and that Dead Day would continue every semester, but instead they were devastated to hear that there will never be a Dead Day again. Dead Day was important because it allowed students a much-needed break before finals week. Students work very hard every semester from beginning to end and there is always an essay due or an exam to study for each week. Jessica Millican, a sophomore student at VSU and a Student Success Center writing tutor, said she hates that Dead Day is now gone and this will be her first semester without this day. “Students would hardly sleep or eat just to study for their exams,” Millican said. “Finals week was the week that the fraternities threw parties and some people would push off studying to go to these parties.” Sam Sewell, a junior speech communication major, said, “I do think Dead Day is a good thing, and they shouldn’t take it away” (Edwards, “Dead Day Gone”). As students are always on the go the entire semester, most of the students relied on this day to help them pass their final exams because final exam week is a stressful week. Under the new calendar, the Monday of exam week will be a normal day and then Tuesday will lead straight into final exams. After working so hard this semester we need at least one day to stop and realize what we are about to do for the next four days. Now without Dead Day, there is no extra time to just sit down, think clearly, and slowly maneuver into finals. Everything is so rushed now, students do not have time to give themselves that extra boost that they really need. Most students have early exams, so they wake up and head straight to class. We no longer have that day to relax and review for each final exam. During Dead Day, the library stayed open 24 hours and it was filled with sleep-deprived students studying excessively. It was the reason that most students usually scored higher on their final exam. That little break before exams was all that students needed because it gave them a little time to catch their breath for a while before easing into final exam mode. Loosening up and becoming more confident before these finals was a must for most students. “As the semester comes to a close every assignment counts, and not studying well could mean the difference between passing a class and failing a class. Understandably, this means that finals can make students feel very high-strung and worried” (Bogers, “Stress Less Week Provides Students with Stress-free Activities before Finals”). Most students care so much about their grades that they stress the whole entire year, but finals week is ten times as bad. With the discontinuation of Dead Day, students will stress even more than usual during this last week of the semester. As this is my first year in college, I have never had Dead Day so I do not know what it feels likes to have it. My anxiety level is high because I have all three of my exams on the same day, and my chemistry exam starts at 8:00 a.m. on the day that was recently Dead Day. I will have to transition from having a regular day on Monday to having finals the following Tuesday. Studying for all three exams at the same time and not be able to focus solely on one exam is going to affect my final grade. It is sad to say that I have never experienced this amazing day. I am very anxious to just get this over with and hopefully pass all of my exams. In high school I exempted all my exams, except one or two. Focusing on my exam will be a challenge for me because I have very bad test anxiety. Usually I become so nervous and afraid of failure that I can barely think straight. Test anxiety can be very serious and it has a great influence on the students’ final exams grade.
This anxiety is “a psychological condition that involves severe distress before, during and/or after an exam, making it impossible for them to do their best work” (Strauss, “Test Anxiety: Why It Is Increasing and 3 Ways to Curb It.”). Test anxiety can cause a student to mentally shut down while they are taking a stress affiliated test. That is why it is crucial that students have Dead Day because they desperately need this break. Being a freshmen, I honestly do not know what to expect for finals week and that adds more stress to the existing equation. When a student is very nervous, “their capacity to think clearly and solve problems accurately is reduced.” said Sian Beilock, a cognitive scientist at the University of Chicago (Strauss, “Test Anxiety: Why It Is Increasing and 3 Ways to Curb It.”). By this point in the semester, students have attended class for nearly a hundred days and are only asking for one day to clear their heads and de-stress before finals begin. Students barely have time to study before finals week because they have essays and final projects that are a large percent of their grades, due a week before finals. “We are scrambling trying to complete our coursework and study for finals at the same time,” said Zach Owens, a 21-year-old political science and business management major (Skelton, “Students Push Universities to Enforce Finals Week Policies.”). Students are in work overload at the end of the semester and they are only asking for twenty-four hours.. Some students have six classes and are already carrying more than the average work load. It is not a good idea to take these exhausted workaholic students right into finals that they haven’t even been able to truly study
for. The creation of Fall Break was the result of eliminating such a day. I do not think Fall Break is as beneficial to the students as Dr. McKinney thought it would be. Before Fall Break, the faculty would work hard all weekend in order to make an early deadline. “ Frankly, most of us are lucky to even eat or sleep those three days; even two hours might make me miss Monday’s deadline,” said English professor Dr. Maren Clegg-Hyer in a statement to the Faculty Senate. “The professors rarely get to attend the graduation ceremonies for their students because they spend their entire weekend grading exam papers to make their early deadline” (Gleason, “Faculty Questions Dead Day”). This shows just how much of a problem that one free day for students can be for the teachers. If there were the start of exams instead of Dead Day, teachers would have more time to grade papers and be able to start a day earlier. Fall Break allows the faculty to have an extra day during finals week to grade these papers. Aubrey Fowler, Assistant Professor of Marketing and Faculty Senate Parliamentarian, believed that getting rid of the day “actually give[s] students a full week for finals, as well as reducing the possibility of having multiple finals on the same day.” Fowler believes that it can be beneficial to the students because “having multiple two or more hour exams on the same day can be very stressful” (Dead Day Decision Tabled). Eliminating Dead Day didn’t truly fix this issue as most students still have more than one two hour final on the same day. Some students even have three finals back to back. However, the teachers will not have so many essays and exams to grade all at once, and they can attend their students’ graduation ceremonies. They no longer have to feel as if a few hours designated to eating over finals weekend will make them miss their early deadline. Everyone’s needs should have been met, so that this two-year issue would have been truly settled for the students, the faculty, and the staff. Hard working students will already be exhausted and stressed out when Fall Break rolls around. This is a break halfway through the semester, so students are likely not going to use it wisely. A lot of students waste these few days, and most students do not complete any work at all during the whole break. That is why the Student Government Association demanded Fall Break and also a five day exam week as an effort to reach the needs of both parties. However, the Academic Scheduling Committee complained about the days. “We went off of votes that we had that were in favor of the fall break and the five day exam schedule… they complained about the days,” said Nick Buford, a Student Government Association senator. “Students were saying that they didn’t mind coming to school three days earlier if they could have the Fall Break and the Thanksgiving Break” (Adgie, “VSU Still Shuns Fall Break”). The faculty did not think that adding a few days would benefit Valdosta State financially. So the faculty voted down the idea because they did not think that creating more ways to lose money was a good idea. The business office told the faculty that if they added a few more days to the semester it would mean “additional days the faculty needs to be paid, additional days that utilities need to be paid” (Adgie, “Dead Day Decision Tabled”). Now with Dead Day eliminated, students do not have any free days set aside just for studying and relaxing. We could have still had Dead Day on the Monday during finals week and then have four exam days. That still gives the faculty an extra grading day, and students will still be given Dead Day. However, the academic calendar change that is now in place is definitely more of a win for the faculty and staff than the students. The students do have an extra exam day, which was supposed to help spread out exams, but, in many cases, multiple exams still fall on the same day, leaving little time to study in between. Former President McKinney adjusted the calendar in an effort to benefit everyone involved. He realized that the decision to keep Dead Day or reinstate Fall Break was becoming a big problem; therefore, he eliminated Dead Day once and for all. Although, the majority of the students are not satisfied with the outcome of this issue, and they do not like the fact that there is no longer an extra day to study and rest. Valdosta State University’s students need to stand up and express their disapproval of such an elimination. They need to sign a petition and send it to the Student Government Association. The SGA will then hopefully write a letter to the Senate Faculty just as Dr. Clegg-Hyer did. The Senate Faculty knew how demanding the faculty became on this issue; however, the time has come for them to realize how unsatisfied the students are. Students, which should be any university’s first priority, are clearly receiving the short end of the deal with the recent elimination of Dead Day. This day should be reinstated to give students more time to study and ease into exam mode. Studies have shown that when students cram for many test, they never do as well. Having a break before final exams is very beneficial to a student’s final grade; Therefore, Dead Day will need to be brought back to life in order to revive students once more after Fall Break so that they can concur their last obstacle of the semester, which is successfully overcoming finals week.
Family vacations, pool memberships, and corn de-tasseling; these have been the experiences of traditional Midwestern summers. For centuries young American children have attended school during the winter months, during farming off seasons when their families could afford to be without them. Families have grown accustomed to a traditional school calendar that provides time for bonding throughout the year. Students have grown accustomed to an eight week break during the summer months where they are allowed to refresh their minds before returning for a new school year. Unfortunately, these traditional experiences and practices are now in jeopardy. In today’s race to improve student achievement, traditional school calendars have become a point of contention. Today more and more school districts and parents alike have begun to debate the pros and cons of an alternative school calendar.
Many students face at least one important test in their life. And if that particular student is one of the many that experience test anxiety, this can affect the students test scores. Test anxiety can be caused by the lack of preparation by the student, but it could be caused by the fear of failure as well. Students have so much resting on college and their ability to do well, such as a good paying job to be able to support themselves. Test anxiety causes nausea, light-headedness, and it could even cause the student to have a panic attack. Students that have severe test anxiety do not have a fair advantage (ADAA,
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Have you ever felt stuck? Wherever you are, it’s the absolute last place you want to be. In the book Into the Wild, Chris McCandless feels stuck just like the average everyday person may feel. Chris finds his escape plan to the situation and feels he will free himself by going off to the wild. I agree with the author that Chris McCandless wasn’t a crazy person, a sociopath, or an outcast because he got along with many people very well, but he did seem somewhat incompetent, even though he survived for quite some time.
Today however, the role of the modern public school is beginning to change. The United States is no longer an agrarian society. As a result, people feel that the traditional school calendar is too old-fashioned a...
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Life or Death? I see it fitting to start off by actually explaining what “Right to Die” is. The Right to Die is a principle based on a person’s choice to terminate their life or to endure voluntary euthanasia. The two Supreme Court cases that relate to the constitutional Right to Die are Cruzan by Cruzan V. Director, Missouri Department of Health and Washington V. Glucksberg . The first of these cases is based on the constitutional right of the state to interfere with medical decisions. Whether the state has a right to withhold the parent’s decision to remove life-sustaining support from their child. While the second case argues whether the state has a right to restrict a patient’s decision to partake in Physician Assisted Suicide.
Silva, Elena. "Revising the Current School Calendar Has Many Implications." Year-Round Schools. Ed. Adriane Ruggiero. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008. At Issue. Rpt. from "On the Clock: Rethinking the Way Schools Use Time." Education Sector Reports. 2007. 1-9. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 19 May 2014.
Why do people celebrate death? Many people including myself have wondered this, and when I first heard of the mexican holiday Dia De Los Muertos. Translated in english, day of the dead is a holiday where instead of mourning lost ones they remember their lost ones by making alters, decorating their graves with things they used to like or their favourite food and celebrate their life. This mexican tradition is now celebrated throughout the united states aswell and this year we decided to dedicate alters to people we lost in the battle against police brutality. We have lost so many souls in the past decade that a black lives matter movement was created. Its sad that it even had to get to this point but all we can do now is fight for change and
The Crucible I disagree with Hales assertion " No principle, however glorious, is worth dying for. " People like Rosa Parks, Thich Quang Duc, and John Proctor died for their beliefs. Many hero's all died for their beliefs, if you believe in something so strongly than you are willing to do anything for that belief. Rosa Parks was a woman that lived in a time when people of color and women faced a lot of oppression.
Most students experience some degree of test anxiety. Test anxiety refers to a combination of physiological, emotional, and psychological components that are caused by the stress of taking exams. This may interfere with one's ability to think, reason, and plan. For some students, test anxiety is an unpleasant experience but doesn't necessarily interfere with exam performance. For other students, however, test anxiety is not only an unpleasant experience but also seriously interferes with exam performance.
Why do always assume what someone is from when we first hear about them? A lot of us end up assuming what someone looks like as well as what they might be like. We always do this and it just isn't right to do that. We do the exact same with Death. Though not everyone will do this, there are some who will. Death is not all that his name says, but were blind to see past that.
Death is the one great certainty in life. Some of us will die in ways out of our control, and most of us will be unaware of the moment of death itself. Still, death and dying well can be approached in a healthy way. Understanding that people differ in how they think about death and dying, and respecting those differences, can promote a peaceful death and a healthy manner of dying.
"Should Schools Start Later in the Day?" Current Events, a Weekly Reader publication 30 Apr. 1999: 3. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 17 Mar. 2012.