The Office of the Provost at Marquette University has announced that there will be no changes to spring and Easter break. In addition May 2021 commencement will go ahead as planned, taking place May 21-22.
Spring break will be between March 13-19. Easter break will take place between April 14-18 for undergraduate students and April 14-17 for graduate students.
The changes to the academic calendar come after the university’s announcement last week to postpone the start of the Spring semester until Jan. 24 for undergraduate, graduate school and the Marquette University Law school as a response to COVID-19 and the omicron variant. The semester was originally scheduled to begin Jan. 18. To make up for lost instruction days due to the change, Marquette will add four additional instruction days at the end of the academic calendar.
The last day of spring classes will be Tuesday, May 10 with finals taking place between Wednesday, May 11 through Tuesday, May 17. Finals will not occur over the weekend unless it’s a Saturday class.
Residence halls will close Thursday, May 19 at 5:30 p.m. but students are expected to leave 48 hours after their last final. Typically students living in residence halls are only allowed to stay 24 hours after their last final. However, in order to give students more flexibility, they have been given an additional 24 hours in light of the change.
Prior to making the calendar changes, input was gathered from different groups across campus such as the University Academic Senate executive committee, the COVID-19 Response Team, Marquette University Student Government executive board, Academic Deans Council, COVID-19 academic planning group, department chairs and Graduate Student Organization leaders.
MUSG President Katie Breck said that following the announcement last week, MUSG met with Vice Provost of Academic affairs and member of the COVID-19 response team John Su on Thursday to discuss changes to the academic calendar.
“We spoke about the importance of prioritizing both the physical and mental health of students, emphasizing that the decisions made must reflect the importance of providing substantial breaks, alleviating the additional stressors and student anxiety brought upon by the Omicron variant, and keeping all members of the Marquette community as safe as possible,” Breck said in an email.
Breck said that MUSG advocated to administration that any changes to the academic calendar should be made by prioritizing student needs.
“We were also mindful of the how these changes will impact the different requirements and curricula present within different colleges and academic programs, final exams and other academic deadlines, and the learning and living experiences of students from all different backgrounds, identities, and experiences,” Breck said in an email.
The Law school and the Graduate School of Management are communicating with their students, faculty and staff directly about changes to their schedules.
There will be no changes to the School of Dentistry as they started their semester as planned, Jan. 3.
Any additional changes to certain programs will be communicated from the program’s dean’s office.
This story is developing.
This story was written by Megan Woolard. She can be reached at [email protected].
