Stop Day will move to Friday next fall

By Jaryd Wilson

Published Nov. 10, 2006

Students looking for a break before finals will have to wait until Fall Semester 2007 for Stop Day.

Until the 2004-2005 school year, Stop Day had been on the Friday before final exam week. For two years, the MU Faculty Council changed it to be on the Saturday before finals, which is where it has been for what will be the third year.

Stop Day, or Reading Day as it is officially listed on the calendar, is a day in the calendar between the end of classes and the beginning of finals. No classes or exams are to be held on Stop Day.

"It was moved back because there was a relaxation of the requirement on the number of days of classes needed," Lamberson said. "The Faculty Council and its equivalent at the other UM campuses believed there should be the longer period for study between classes and finals."

Stop Day is scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 9 this semester and Saturday, May 5 next semester. It will return to Fridays in Fall Semester 2007, when it falls on Dec. 7.

MU Faculty Council finalized the 2007-2008 academic calendar last year.

Faculty Council Academic Affairs chairman Bill Lamberson said the move was made because MU was short on the number of Monday-Wednesday-Friday class days.

"There is a set number of Monday-Wednesday-Friday and Tuesday-Thursday class days, I believe required by the Board of Curators, during which classes are to be held," Lamberson said. "When the decision was made to not have classes on Martin Luther King holiday and during the week of Thanksgiving, this campus was below the number for Monday-Wednesday-Friday class days."

For five years, Lamberson has been chairman of the Academic Affairs Committee, which makes the academic calendar each year.

Before 2004, final exams started on the Saturday following Stop Day.

"At that time classes, ended on Thursday, Friday was Reading/Stop Day, and Finals Week began on Saturday," Lamberson said. "As a compromise, we shortened finals week to five days beginning on Monday, moved Reading Day to Saturday and ended classes on Friday."

Though students might be upset about an extra day of classes, Lamberson explained the Faculty Council's decision.

"We believed if an extra day was required, it would be preferred on the Friday before finals, since there was now a full weekend between classes and finals, rather than the Monday and Tuesday of the week of Thanksgiving," Lamberson said. "At the time these changes were made I believe they were pretty well explained and justified, and there was very few complaints by students."

The MU School of Law has incorporated its own Stop Day into its academic calendar. According to Associate Dean Jim Devine and professor David Ross Hardy, the school can create its own academic calendar.

"The law school is, under university and campus regulations, exempt from the university academic calendar, primarily because grades in the law school are based entirely on the final examination," Devine said.

The School of Law's Stop Day falls on Monday, Dec. 4 this semester, but law students only have three days, including the weekend, before final exams start.

"The law school has a longer exam schedule than the rest of campus," Devine said. "The law school's exam schedule runs from Dec. 5 through Dec. 15, meaning that the school's classes end before the campus' classes end."