The University Senate will vote April 28 on whether to combine Fall and Thanksgiving breaks into one week-long break.
The motion, which passed through the Academic Policy Council, would combine the Monday and Tuesday of Fall Break with the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of Thanksgiving Break.
"Fall Break always gets moved around because of football season," Bruce Hozeski, vice chairman of the University Senate, said. "This way, we would eliminate the smaller breaks by putting them in the same week."
The APC shot down the original proposal for eliminating Saturday finals, Steve Geraci, Student Government Association president, said.
"The whole process has been sort of a roller coaster," Geraci said.
After the original proposal was rejected, the council started from scratch and proposed simply to eliminate Saturday finals in general.
Geraci then proposed the Thanksgiving week-long break to accommodate the new fall schedule.
"The schedule I proposed seemed to work out for everyone," Geraci said. "It will be really nice if it passes, so SGA and the governance system can give something back to the students by getting rid of Saturday finals."
Also passed by the APC for consideration is a new finals schedule for fall.
If the motion passes, Saturday finals will be eliminated during the fall semester and replaced by fall graduation ceremony. Finals week would operate like the spring semester, with student having finals Monday through Friday.
This would eliminate one Monday night class for the semester, so the Monday night classes would need to be longer to make up for the lost night at the end of the semester, Hozeski said.
Also slated for vote is a change to the student code of conduct. A privacy violation might be added that prohibits the unauthorized use of video, audio or photographic devices to make an image or recording of a person. According to the provision, the recording would be illegal if it would cause injury or distress to the person or if it occurs in a private area such as a residence or locker room.
This issue was slated for last month's agenda meeting but was sent back to committee for revision.
The APC and the Student and Campus Life Council revised a motion regarding the use of technology in the classroom, which is slated for consideration at next week's meeting as well.
The SCLC felt that the original wording was too vague, Hozeski said.
"Under the former policy wording, professors could prohibit students from using laptops in the classroom, and this was not intended for that kind of limitation," he said.
The revised wording says any form of technology capable of originating, storing, receiving or sending information to accomplish violations listed in the student code can be prohibited. The motivation behind the motion is to provide faculty with a specific basis for limiting the use of such technology in situations where a student's knowledge of a subject is being tested.
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