Despite support among students and faculty to move Mount Royal University’s early fall reading week to November to align with other Alberta Universities, the week-long break starts next week.
In April, the Mount Royal Faculty Association (MRFA) voted overwhelmingly (72 per cent) to shift MRU’s reading week to November.
“That polling represents that faculty want to support the supermajority of students that wanted to move to November,” said Peter Ryan, a MRU public relations professor and the faculty union’s policy and governance officer.
Ryan calls the results a democratic mandate for pushing the reading week later in the semester.
How the MRU’s academic schedule gets set
MRU’s General Faculty Council (GFC), the governing body made up of faculty and administrators that oversees the university’s academic affairs, decides where the break falls.
In a statement to the Calgary Journal discussing recent GFC deliberations about moving the break, MRU’s administration said the results leaned toward a November break, but “there wasn’t enough agreement to consider officially changing to November.”
MRU’s students’ association has also advocated alternatives to the October reading week besides November, such as the proposed two-break split.
GFC rejected that idea.
Original rationale for MRU’s early reading week
Mount Royal University was the first Alberta post-secondary institution to offer a fall reading week.
In its emailed statement to the Calgary Journal, MRU’s administration points to a few reasons why the reading week began in October, including:
- Holiday season — Students who prefer the October reading week noted they enjoy spending Thanksgiving with their families and prefer to travel then, since the weather is still relatively nice.
- Timing — The October break falls roughly in the middle of the semester, and most instructors consider it a “less disruptive time” for courses and lab work.
- Student assessment — October is when student academic performance is underway, allowing students to catch up on work and avoid falling behind.
- Mental health — The first encounter of academic-based stress starts in October, so the current scheduled break helps protect against early burnout.
- Scheduling challenges — Academic scheduling during November poses a great challenge.
Student opposition to early break
Yet, students and faculty appear opposed to the early break.
In addition to the recent faculty survey, a 2019 survey by now-retired MRU instructor Mike Vernon found that 84.5 percent of broadcast media and journalism students (97 respondents) were unhappy with the October break.
Also, a 2023 poll conducted by MRU’s student newspaper, The Reflector, suggested that 3.5 percent (62 respondents) gave the earlier October break the lowest possible score.
In his MFRA role, Ryan thinks the university should support students’ preference for a November reading week.
“If MRU prides itself on being supportive of students and different from the massive universities that have huge class sizes, then we should be listening to our students and what they, as adults, are requesting of us,” said Ryan in an interview with the Calgary Journal.
MRU President Tim Rahilly, who chairs the GFC, committed to reconsidering the break’s timing at the governing body’s May 2026 meeting.
