A Full Week’s Helping of Thanksgiving

Last Wednesday morning, as classes began, and the Harvard campus was covered by a steady snowfall, only one thing was missing from the snow-draped college: any trace of its students. In the days before one of the biggest family holidays of the year, many students chose being with their loved ones over classes early in the week. The students who decided to bear the last few hours of lecture were met by less than enthusiastic professors and an only partially operating campus. Scheduling classes during the week of Thanksgiving is a complete waste of the University’s resources and both faculty and student time. The administration needs to consider student behavior and recognize that the current schedule is disrupting to our educational and personal lives. Like Yale, we should have a week-long fall break starting with The Game and going through Thanksgiving.

For students who do not live in the greater Boston area, it is incredibly impractical, inconvenient and expensive to make it home after mid-Wednesday. While members of the administration might have a quick and painless commute to their nearby homes, students from all over the country—and the world—are forced to chose between missing classes and seeing family for the first time in months. Additionally, many students who wished to travel on Wednesday left early, this year, for fear that poor weather would cause flight delays and dangerous traffic conditions—a common Thanksgiving-weekend occurrence in New England.

Since many students opt to leave before Wednesday, those who chose to endure the last few days of classes are often faced with empty lecture halls and frustrated faculty. Often, professors do not put energy into their lectures or cover important material when they know that over half the class may be missing, and logically, they should not have to. Unlike some administrators, faculty are generally understanding of the travel concerns of students, and many cancel their lectures and sections.

But if so many classes are being canceled—or taught at a sub-par level—as a reaction to low student attendance, why schedule classes at all? We should not waste three days of class that would be well attended and better utilized at some other time during the semester.

When asked, Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 explained to me in an e-mail that “there has never been an assumption that students from any significant distance from Cambridge would go home at Thanksgiving.”

Perhaps the administration should reconsider its assumptions. As early as 4 a.m. on Wednesday morning, students rode to Logan airport in shuttles provided by the Undergraduate Council. Many house dining halls closed before lunch on Wednesday, and only Dunster was open for Thanksgiving dinner. During the Thanksgiving weekend, shuttles to and from the Quad ran less frequently. Besides lectures being canceled and sections rescheduled, libraries were also closed. Clearly, those in more frequent contact with students realized that most would be off-campus for the weekend. It seems that only our administration out of touch with the personal priorities of students.

Too often, the outside-of-class needs of Harvard students are ignored. Thanksgiving should be a time for us to relax and take a step back from our intense academic environment. If students received the whole week off, class time would not be wasted, and students could avoid much of the stress that comes with commuting on the busiest travel day of the year.

The administration should be more sensitive to the family concerns of its students. A rigorous and demanding college schedule no doubt has its virtues, but we could replace these days elsewhere in the semester, which would only improve their educational value. Preventing students from being with their family on such an important American holiday leaves students embittered, not enriched. By changing the schedule, we can utilize class time more effectively and provide opportunities for students to rejuvenate their tired minds. That way, next Thanksgiving, both the administration and the students can be thankful for common sense.