Colleges canceling spring break due to coronavirus
A growing number of colleges and universities are canceling spring break six months in advance because of concerns about students’ anticipated travel activities amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
TheUniversity of Michigan is the latest institutions to amend its 2021 academic calendar, removing the traditional spring break period, which it did at a Board of Regents meeting Sept. 17, according to ABC News.
In doing so, theUniversity of Michigan joins other Big Ten universities that have eliminated spring break for the coming semester, including Ohio State University; PurdueUniversity; University of Iowa andUniversity ofWisconsin, Madison.
Other schools that have followed suit include Baylor University, CarnegieMellon University; Iowa StateUniversity and theUniversity of Northern Iowa; Kansas StateUniversity; Texas ChristianUniversity; University of Florida, University ofKentucky and the University of Tennessee.
Baylor ProvostNancy Brickhouse said that calling off spring breakwas in the interest of “preventing COVID-19 outbreaks like we sawacross the country last spring.”
The rationale behind skipping next year’s spring school holidays is sound, according to a June 2020 study conducted by Ball State and Vanderbilt, which examined the GPS smartphone data of over seven millionU.S. college students during spring break. Its findings provide empirical, causal evidence of the nationwide effects of spring breakers in relation to COVID-19’s spread.
Some schools, such as CarnegieMellon and Purdue, are instead sprinkling several “break days” or “reading days” throughout the spring semester calendar in an effort to make up for the loss of a real vacation fromschool.