A proposal to split Mount Royal University’s fall reading week into two shorter breaks will not happen anytime soon.
MRU’s fall break coincides with the Thanksgiving long weekend, often just five or six weeks into the term. Students at the University of Calgary get their break around Remembrance Day from Nov. 9 to 15 this year.
It’s designed to be a time for students to catch up on coursework and get a break from lectures and labs.
“I wish [the break] was later so it would coincide with the heavier course load later in the semester,” said broadcast student Ali Beebe. “It honestly makes more sense if we have an extra week for projects and assignments when they’re really piled on rather than early… when it’s considerably a lighter workload.”
The proposal
The Students’ Association at Mount Royal University (SAMRU) has received many complaints about the early timing of MRU’s reading break.
Last year, SAMRU proposed splitting the break into two parts: one at the traditional Thanksgiving weekend, with another few days off coinciding with Remembrance Day in November.
“The research tells us that the early break is disruptive to students because, you know, you’ve spent all summer staying up all night, doing fun things, maybe working a lot of jobs,” said Tala Abu Hayyaneh, President of SAMRU’s Representation Executive Council, in an interview last year.
That idea failed, in part, because the Faculty of Science believes it’s “not viable due to significant lab scheduling constraints,” Abu Hayyaneh said in a statement to the Calgary Journal.
Retired MRU instructor Mike Vernon echoed that concern.
“If you want everybody in your course to be… doing the same work in a given week, does that mean you’re going to have more disruption between the sections of your course?” asked Vernon in an interview with the Calgary Journal.
Going forward
Still, SAMRU is looking into alternatives to having the break around Thanksgiving.
Vernon was an advocate for changing the date of the fall break. He surveyed journalism and broadcast students of all years during the fall of 2018, and found that a vast majority of respondents would like the date moved to November.
This would align MRU with many other post-secondary institutions in Alberta.
MRU’s Presidential Task Force on Mental Health concluded that the current October break was best for students.
Vernon disagrees.
“You look out [at a class] in October, and everybody’s still reasonably happy because they haven’t really had much to do,” said Vernon. In November, though, “the people that are there are looking pretty devastated. To me, as an instructor, that’s the time that people need a break.”
“There’s no sunlight, the weather sucks. Everything is due. They [think] they’re going to fail the semester. The finals are coming. Give them a break in early November to not burn out,” said Vernon.
SAMRU collaborated with MRU’s Office of the Registrar to survey students and faculty during the Winter 2025 semester to better understand campus feelings about the break.
The students’ association plans to release the findings of the survey on Oct. 17.
