Make Use Of Shorter School Year

Freshmen and sophomores, open your senior year Week-by-Week planners. Forget just planning for Easter break or the summer -- now's the time to start planning a potential two weeks of freedom during the 2003-04 school year caused by a shorter calendar year.

I hope you all are not like me and didn't spend St. Patrick's Day crying in your green beer about the poor tuition decisions the UNC-system Board of Governors has made this year.

But I was saved from my disillusionment when, in a second of sober reflection, I recalled the BOG's best decision so far this year -- a proud moment in its February meeting when it voted to "give UNC-system schools the option to shorten their calendars."

That's BOG language for (this is my translation): "We have decided to finally give in after the faculty, staff and students of UNC-system schools have begged to have the same schedule as every other freaking school in this country."

The BOG realized what UNC-Chapel Hill faculty, staff and students have known for too long -- that sometimes less is more in education, especially when it comes to burned-out university students and faculty.

The officials who have successfully kept UNC-system school calendars almost as lengthy as N.C. high schools' for years have finally given up the good fight for the longest university calendar in the United States.

Thanks to the BOG ruling, some overworked professors might thankfully only give lectures once each semester rather than playing recordings of themselves before midterms.

These professors will spend this extra time doing groundbreaking research they have been meaning to do for 20 years, or maybe like me, they'll daydream about future vacations.

David Lanier, University registrar and head of the calendar committee, told The Daily Tar Heel in February that the academic year would likely start a week later in the fall of 2003 and end a week earlier in the spring of 2004.

That's two extra weeks for UNC-CH students to run amok and maybe even save the world from terrorism -- the possibilities are endless.

If God created the world in one week, what could 25,000 UNC-CH students and faculty do with two extra weeks of free time?

When the decree was handed down in February, I selfishly pouted because the potentially shortened calendar cannot happen until the 2003-04 school year as next year's calendar has already been printed.

(The BOG is not aware of Wite-Out, but the UNC Association of Student Governments' leaders plan to use their recently raised funds to notify them of this invention.)

But I had an epiphany during Spring Break -- I realized I should rejoice for the darling sophomores and freshmen, the fetuses who will enjoy these extra weeks of freedom.

Live those days of freedom for the long-suffering students who have come before you.

Let us not think merely of having fun during the 14 days of glory -- no, underclassmen should accomplish world peace and stop terrorism.

UNC students, leaving behind a UNC merchandise trail, could volunteer our helping hands around the world.

Why languish on a beach when students could be combing Fort Lauderdale and Cancun for Osama bin Laden?

Students could also use the extra time to build new parking lots around campus and maybe even build a Disney World-style monorail to connect campus. Or maybe we could finish the ongoing construction projects?

Seriously, giving faculty, staff and students more personal time to survive in an increasingly demanding culture was a good call.

As we all know following Spring Break -- what a difference a week makes in our productivity, creativity and zest for life.

To the youth reading this column -- start planning your vacation now, before the BOG changes its mind!

Columnist Katy Nelson can be reached at knelson@email.unc.edu.